"Perhaps It Would Be Fantastic For You To Go Over The Top..."

I had a great class today! We started dancing in partners, and we were killed off if we were awful.

"If you think never will this couple fuck, the complicité is bad."

 I danced with Anna and we had lots of fun together - great complicité - and we were picked to do the next exercise...which was to make up a Mélodrama scene - playing as if we were actors from Monsieur Dumas' school at a party. When the music plays we dance, when the music fades we improvise a scene together, when the music comes back on we dance again, and when it fades we improvise something else.

Well we did lots of scenes! We were having a great time dancing, and we kept that feeling when we were acting (which is not easy!). We did a few different kind of broken-love scenes, one of Jean Valjean returning to find Cosette has changed and betrayed him, and one in which I went off to war and then returned broken, and eventually died.

Philippe said we had great complicité and that the audience love us. He said when I came back after going to war (I took a risk and returned in crutches) he didn't like it so much, because my body was bent (the crutch was too small...) and as I died I gave my weight to Anna. Even when dying I need to remain light and graceful!

It was fantastic! Felt really great - free and full of pleasure. It's wonderful to work with a power-house actress like Anna too - it feels like acting with her lifts my work. This is because she really commits to the work and has such a strong presence. But good work for me too, being with another actor and playing and discovering together. Bliss.

~

"You have to look for your scene as an actor."

Effects: "Look left! Look right! Look at your shoes! ... Look left! Look right! Look at the desk! ... Look at the People of Paris! ... Back to the desk!"

Fixed point gives dignity: "You move for your audience."

Westerns are good Mélodramas.

Kabuki and Noh Theatre are great for Fixed Points.

Opera is very good for Mélodramatic gestures and movement. Philippe gave some actors the option to perform their scenes in the form of Opera if they wanted - which was fun to watch. It lifts us out of reality. Everything becomes bigger. Grander.

~

For the rest of class we did another scene from a Mélodrama we started last week (although it was brief so I don't think I wrote about it). Basically, the first part shows a poor mother who abandons her child outside a church at Christmas time, because she can't support the child. She wishes it a better a life, and puts a medallion around the child's neck, and leaves. We hear passionate Christmas carols sung as the stage blacks out (and the baby is taken away), and then we see the mother come back as she's decided she doesn't want to abandon him - but it's too late - he's gone.

The next part is many years later, set in a young lawyers office. 

The mother, now old, comes to a lawyer to get help as her landlord has threatened to up the rent and she can't pay it - and if the rent goes up then she'll be on the street. The lawyer says he will go out the back to check some books to see if there is something he can do to help. And whilst he is out the back the mother goes to the desk and sees the medallion she put around her son's neck. The lawyer is her son! Should she tell him? Should she say nothing? The son comes back in the room and says yes he can help her. She thanks him, and looks like she is going to tell him, but she doesn't. She goes to leave, is maybe going to say something, but doesn't. Then leaves, hesitates, is she going to say something? No. She can't do it. And she leaves. The lawyer then says "what a nice lady" and the curtain falls. END.

Effects are important: When the mother enters, the lawyer and mother need to look at each other, then the People of Paris, three times. Phone in the message: something is up!

The audience wants the mother to say something desperately. Enjoy this tease: "The audience wants something and the actor has fun to play opposite."

The lawyer role requires real subtlety. He only works for the poor. Never the rich!

"If you are pretentious we don't love you."

"He is a lawyer, but he doesn't have the misery behind him."

I did a scene with Rocio as the mother. I felt good about my ability to take the stage and be watchable - setting up the scene. A while ago I couldn't do this so well. But today was better. But after our scene was cut short Philippe said "We didn't see so much nice boy" and I also reentered to early - cutting Rocio's realisation of the medallion short. But that's because I couldn't see or hear! And we're improvising...

Philippe worked with Rocio on the moment in which she explains her desperate situation. He got her to speak slowly at first, and then turn her body more towards the audience and talk in a loud whisper, then give a quick look at the lawyer then up to the People of Paris, then put her head down and pretend to cry whilst talking really fast, and then rise her head to show her face. "You have to give. To show a lot of images."

~

At the end of class Philippe asked Rik (from Singapore) to tell us the story of how he got his name (as he has a really interesting story about how he got his new name). Then he asked Rik to perform it as a Mélodrama, and use Beijing Opera as a form too. He did a nice job - really committing to it - and Thomas assisted with a drum soundtrack which was cool. Philippe spoke afterwards about us risking to go over the top. 

"Perhaps it would be fantastic for you to go over the top...even if you are ridiculous...to discover where the limits are."

He said he didn't understand why we aren't jumping to get up on stage (in general, the class is pretty hesitant to get up). He said a flop is nothing. You try something, and if it doesn't work you learn something. And if something works, it may open many doors. 

And he spoke about how we are here to discover something wonderful about ourselves that we can sell for a lot of money. And what a great thing it is to spend a year or two to do that. Too true. :)