Africa! Africa!

Today began with Ben and Sophia presenting the ‘urals’ scene with text from On Purge Bébé. He got them to be louder. To fight more.

“They have to shout. They love to shout...The pleasure to shout.”

They were rushing the text, and were dropping a few lines (I’m learning the same text). I could see Ben feeling the flop and so he started improvising, which put Sophia in the shit, but they saved themselves by both just improvising the rest of the scene. Which was great, but they’ve already been great like this. Now the challenge is doing it with the text. “If you do the text like this it will be good.”

It shows the importance of knowing your lines inside out. “You miss one line and all the rhythm is going to fall down. You need to know the text like a machine gun.” 

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Philippe then said he’d like to see the scene done with Thomas as a drag queen - as a transvestite (not a real woman like we did on Friday) - with a gay partner (me). We tried, but just couldn’t get it to work. It was like a real fight, not a play one. It was difficult to play. I suggested that it was better when he really played a woman. So we tried but it wasn’t any better. Philippe said he’d had doubts on Friday about us together, and said that Thomas and I are “not a good actor couple.” He said there were negative waves coming from Thomas, and at the end of our second improvisation (which went for a while as we tried to find something) I started to feel it to. I would make an offer and it would get cut off. The drag queen kept getting in my face, trying to dominate me, but it was really Thomas doing that. Not positive and open. Closed and aggressive. Not massively. But it was there.

We did find one great moment where Thomas basically gave up on stage whilst I was playing with him, and then he picked up the bucket he had, and started drumming with it. Soon he was chanting “Africa! Africa!” whilst I was dancing and singing in a Rasta/Lion King style. 

I reckon we should do something along these lines for the next Cabaret!

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Finally Barbara and Duncan got up to try the scene. It was bad. They were both bad. And Philippe really slammed them for it. Let it drop. And they both were clearly effected by it. He then worked with each one of them separately. He got Barbara to come on singing a funny spanish song, to flirt with the audience. But she never quite got it. Just being with us.   She got really frustrated with herself and was crying - saying she’s not all of these things and wants to be all of these things. Eventually Philippe got her to stand still in the centre of the stage and to sing a simple little melody in Spanish. To smile. To wink at us. Here she was beautiful. We could see her. Her sensitivity, her fears, her humanity. She didn’t need to cry to achieve this. It didn’t come from her emotions. It came from her simplicity. And her openness. It’s scary to do that! She was brave today too. At one point she asked to just sit down, and Philippe asked her whether she wanted to work or to sit, but she eventually said yes she wants to work. And she did.

He also briefly worked with Duncan, who he’s been giving shit about how he moves his body (it’s very angular and robotic) lately. He got Ben to come up next to Duncan, and for them to play each other. So here’s Ben being all relaxed and Canadian. Well, it was more Southern Hick, but anyway! And Duncan being South African. And Duncan started to loosen up after a while. He falls more into his body, stops doing so much. And Philippe asked him if he films ‘porno films’ to which Duncan said ‘yes of course. Many’. He starts to have a bit of silly pleasure. And Philippe asks if Duncan ever includes Yosune in them (an ex girlfriend of his, and an ex student, who was in the room today - which was a little awkward considering their bumpy past) and Duncan said “oh no - I only work with professionals.” It was naughty! And very funny! And Duncan goes all red and is really laughing. But nervous as well as he may have offended his ex girlfriend. But here he’s real. And absolutely lovable.

Earlier, Duncan had asked Philippe why Ben can be completely crazy on stage, and as soon as Duncan does just one crazy thing it doesn’t work. Philippe didn’t want to go into Psychology, but suggested that everybody is crazy in a different way. And funny in a different way. And beautiful in a different way. Which is fantastic. This is what we have to do as actors. Show our beauty, humour, craziness. Not anybody else’s. Or a cliché way. This helped me realise I don’t need to explore being crazy like Ben. I need to discover how I am crazy like me.