The Time To Be Innocent

Today we explored a scene in Act II of La Puce à L’Oreille between ‘Ferraillon’, an ex-military guy, and ‘Eugénie’, the house servant, a free, good-fun women who doesn’t really care about her job.

“We have to see the guy - he was a long time in the army.”

“And...I could touch her bottom [the servants] too.”

“He ordered people when he was a sergeant. But thirty years later it’s a bit ridiculous.”

A few of us had a go but nobody really got it. When I tried Philippe got me to have a less upperclass voice, and to be older. And to have the hots for the servant. But I couldn’t really make it fizz. That’s because, as Philippe said, I’m “better in a bourgeois way”. Lately Philippe has been talking about how actors play better in certain roles, and it’s the directors job to put actors in roles they play well in. So I’m not concerned that I’m not fantastic as the military guy. I am more free in the upperclass fool role.

~

Then a scene in Act III between ‘Antoinette’ and ‘Étienne’. Antoinette is cheating on Étienne but has been getting away with it for a while. But Étienne has just spotted her at the Hotel Casablanca and has rushed home to catch her out, but she gets home just before him! So the scene begins with Antoinette quickly taking off her cloak and setting the room up nicely and then she sits down calmly, as if always there, just before Étienne enters. When he does, he is sure of what he saw, and is ready to attack. But Antoinette plays it so cool and innocent that gradually Étienne comes to doubt what he saw and give it up.

“We have to see him furious: ‘YOU PLAY THIS GAME WITH ME!’ The more you play furious the more she plays ‘Sorry I don’t know what you mean.’”

Philippe mostly worked on the girls’ performances in this scene because essentially, it is Antoinette’s scene - it’s her response that the audience is interested in. He directed the girls to play it nice and slow, a very clear and different rhythm from Étienne, with lightness and joy. The pleasure of lying.

“You don’t take the time to be innocent...so it’s bad. You have to take the time to be innocent.”

~

Philippe also worked with Steph who was doing too much - underlining. He got her to repeat what she did physically, and tell us what she’s doing as she does it. “I entered, took off my coat, put it on the chair, then I walked over to this seat, and then I sat down.” Then Philippe asked the class, do we prefer what she did now, or what she did before? We preferred what she did now, because it was simple and clear.

“You have to do what we need to dream around you. You don’t do enough: you don’t exist. You do too much: we want to kill you.”

I love this. This is what makes this school different from other theatre schools. I think. And I love it.