“Her, She Is A Dragon. She Always Has Something To Say.”

Ben and Sophia presented their version of the “Urals...Urals...” scene. They had previously been given the advice to shout more, so that’s what they did this time. However it was too much. “They love to shout, but là, it’s a war...It’s too much a war. Too much shouting.”

Philippe got Sophia to continue shouting, but have Ben play more of a gentleman. “Boring like Nadir...but happy with himself”. Ben played this smiling idiot who was much more slow and relaxed and in his own world, and it worked nicely alongside Sophia’s constant ranting.

“Her, she is a dragon. She always has something to say.”

“We need more games.” We need to see lots of different tactics.

“With her you don’t know how to attack, or to stop.”

“You will get it. We will get it. Because it’s not easy.”

 He didn’t say this for Mia and I. And I’m a bit scared he’s going to cut us and take Ben and Sophia for the show instead, which would suck. But we’ll stick with it.

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Mia presented a number for Thursday’s upcoming Cabaret - a marionette puppet of Edith Piaf singing. She tried a similar thing last time, but Philippe said it wasn’t magic. We don’t think - “wow, it’s alive”. And that was the case again today. It’s nice, and the singing is nice, but the puppet doesn’t come alive. So Philippe again said no to this in the show. He tried having her just sing as herself, and it was better. And then he tried making Mia like a puppet with rope attached to her limbs and Mike controlling her from above, but it didn’t work. It wasn’t believable, or magic.

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Vicky also presented a song, and then Ben had another scene for us to improvise for his Feydeau play. One in which the hotel manager approaches Feydeau about not paying his rent for the past six months. I played the manager - a bit nervous and official like I often play. I want to change this up. It’s conventional and boring. Philippe got me to play as if for  I feel like there’s a possibility Feydeau might kill me. This just made me talk more, and faster, and be more nervous, which wasn’t what Philippe hoped for. I think he was trying to get me to be more still. I could have done this, I just took a different take. 

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Quite low energy today. Have been pretty non-stop lately. Didn’t let it get to me too much, but still feeling fed up with the class. All last week people said “tomorrow” and “next week” for presenting scenes...and nothing new was presented today. I don’t feel particularly inspired or driven by the energy of the class, and am feeling a bit tired of school. I preferred the pace of last year - in which there were lots of different courses and we had to work quickly. But this year it’s much more drawn out. We’re just doing Vaudeville for ten weeks, and I’ve kind of had enough. Of course I’ll keep going and exploring, but because the class isn’t that driven, and often nobody is presenting anything, it’s become a real drag.