Aha! Discover Through Pleasure!

I had a good reminder of how important pleasure is today. When I have pleasure on stage - when I'm having fun - I feel much freer to play, to explore, to risk and to give. I'm also watchable. And because it's my pleasure, it's unique and special. Philippe spoke about how there's fun to be had with every character, so it's my job as an actor to find it. To discover through pleasure.

~

Today, for the whole class (which had a funny dragging semi-painful energy for some reason..."good mood everybody!"), we did an exercise in which an TV interviewer was interviewing passers-by on the street. All of this as our characters of course.

The first time I was interviewed (by Bertrand's wonderful old lady character) I tried talking with a camp gay voice, which didn't work - and in a panic spat out something about seeing a nasty man, whose name was Philippe. I then got harrassed for having a terrible idea - which is fair enough, but I never would have intentionally come up with a bad idea like that! It just bloody came out! When it came to killing me, Brette saved my life, saying she wanted to see me one more time. Cheers Brette!

When it came to my next turn I was the interviewer. I tried a loud scary threatening pirate voice. The rhythm worked a bit, but not really. When it came to killing me for the second time I started dancing and playing around with my legs (which were in brand new white tights I got today courtesy of English Ed). I was being silly - ridiculous - and the audience started laughing. And I had fun too.

"When you play with the threat of being kicked off, and have pleasure, you are good. But without this pleasure, when you push, you are no good."

After this moment I would have loved to stay on, because I felt playful and free. Got to find this place again and again. Use this time at school to practice getting to that space.

~

Share: "Too much character and not with your friends."

Play for the pleasure of playing, nothing more: "We see you want something and that is boring."

Philippe led Sophia to have fun with her aura. Be tall, nose up, walk slowly.

"It's not with your idea you're going to be the character. It's with something alive."

"You are here to discover a big part of the beauty of life."

"You have to show a special pleasure."

"You have to say I have a fun to make my character exist."

"You have to say: I want to be beautiful. I want to show my spirit."

"A realistic character is the death of theatre...because we don't see your pleasure, your fantasy...we just see theatre."

~

Philippe helped a few people today but..."I'm not always going to be nice. It's you [that has to find it]."

"Everyone is beautiful when you find your way...of course you have to find your way."

All of this with the pleasure of 'nobody knows who I am'.

~

Also finished the book I've been reading lately:

'Kafka on the Shore' by Haruki Murakami

It was addictive as the critics said. Nothing mindblowing. But I kept wanting to read the next page. It was quite a calm read, but then I'd find myself getting stressed for the characters at times. The book kind of takes you on a well crafted emotional journey. It had elements of fantasy - with talking cats, fish flying from the sky, and magic rocks - and a murder mystery. Unfortunately the ending was a bit unfinished for me - similar to the slightly disappointing end to LOST. But like with LOST, when you're really into it you care less about the mystery and more about the characters. And that happened for me with this book too.