Shakespeare Joins The Mafia, Meets Hitchcock, & Eats Crêpes

To started with Rodrigo and Anna working with Philippe on a scene from The Seagull in which Arkadina removes Treplyov's bandages. The son has to be a wannabe revolutionary (and suicidal) writer. The mother has to be an actor/diva and to not like her son.

Philippe got Sara to slap Rodrigo hard in the face, and got him to shout his text. "Now he starts to exist in my imagination." This sounds a bit extreme...but "it gives a good fixed point, a slap." He starts to be a bit strange, and thus we dream around him more.

He also got Anna to enter a bunch of times, trying to get her to embody this star actress she was playing. He got her to enter slowly to marriage music, with Tom (Australia) as her partner - then without Tom. Not sad. Not sexy. Not bitchy. Not boring. But a star. It's a fine line! Be tall. Be light. Be beautiful...

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Then we did a scene from Othello:

IAGO
Will you sup there?

CASSIO
Faith, I intend so.

IAGO
Well, I may chance to see you; for I would
very fain speak with you.

CASSIO
Prithee, come; will you?

IAGO 

Go to; say no more.

Philippe got us to did it in the style of a mafia scene - like a secret meeting.

Two men entered from each side of the room, discreetly said the text to each other, with a 'little mafia smile', then departed. It was pretty funny, especially when Philippe put Western music behind it!

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Then Steph worked on a monologue from All's Well That Ends Well. Philippe insisted on real love.  "LOVE! Not idiot love!"..."If you love like this, my sister is happy"... (Philippe detestes his sister).

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We then did a scene from Othello (Act 5 Sc 2) just before Othello murders Desdemona.

DESDEMONA

Will you come to bed, my lord?

OTHELLO

Have you prayed tonight, Desdemon?

DESDEMONA

Ay, my lord.

OTHELLO

If you bethink yourself of any crime

Unreconciled as yet to heaven and

grace,

Solicit for it straight.

For fun, we did it in the style of a Hitchcock film. 

With a damsel-in-distress type of entrance by Desdemona - looking around a bit on edge as if something is going to happen, and then a spooky entrance by Othello - acting strangely.

"He is in love with her. In love. She is beautiful. And in fifteen minutes she is going to die."

After Tom from Australia had a go, Philippe got him to come out as an Aboriginal and dance (the Aussie's in the class were cringing at the politically incorrectness of this!), then for him to add Othello text to this. 

Then he got Tom to speak like an Australian racist - a kind of "bloody Abo's" stereotype - and then finally as Iago. He got Tom to say in a deep, soft, and malicious (Aussie) voice: "I am coming. You will see."

"The difference between Othello and Iago is very subtle."

Tom did some good work here. Good fixed point, silence and sensitivity. Philippe wants to see scenes more than monologues now I think. He said monologues are good for discovering the actor's individual beauty, but for Iago (for example) he said "he has to move, this character, in relation to a game with another actor." I'm really keen on playing Iago so am going to do a scene with Andre. Reputation! Reputation! Reputation!...

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Tonight I had a 'Romeo + Juliet + Crêpes' night at my place. We watched Baz Luhrmann's Romeo+Juliet and ate crêpes which we made on Jean-Luc's crêpe maker the real french way! 

I love this movie. It's so theatrical and larger than life. It's beautiful. About 15 years old now, but still so modern and exciting. This is what I want my theatre to be like.