"I Sell My Life - My Body - As An Actor."

Today we improvised a scene from Le Dindon (Act 2) between Armadine, a seductive woman, and  Victor, a seventeen year old pubescent hotel pageboy. Armadine seduces Victor, who doesn’t get it at first, but then can’t help himself from kissing her. But he quickly apologises saying he’s going through changes...he’s got strange spots all over his face.

I had a go with Christine in which I played a kind of American Jock with a loud Bronx accent. I entered jogging and stretched a bit as if I was a real sporty young guy. Mocking an old high school friend of mine (Julian Braatvedt).

It was an idea I had before, and it worked...luckily (I was aware it could flunk badly)! The scene quickly turned into Christine asking for working-out advice - what exercises she should do - and then me showing her...and then me helping her do it. 

So here’s Christine lying on her back thrusting her pelvis into the air, and me lying underneath her bottom pushing her upwards. Sexual-innuendo with my character totally unaware of anything sexual. It was funny. People were laughing and it was good. Which Philippe admitted, but said it’s not the scene from the play. And he said Christine’s character needed to get hornier and hornier throughout the scene, which would have taken the scene further (we kind of ran out of gas with the exercises gag). But we had fun.

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We also did a scene later in the play (Act 3) between Redillon and Armardine in which Redillon is absolutely exhausted - "Everything he moves is painful" - and Armadine wants to have sex. So there’s conflict! Ben and Vicky did a great improvisation - really good games and lots of fun - but at the end Philippe said it’s not the scene. Because by the end it was clear they were going to have sex. But that’s not the scene. 

I got up and tried with Barbara but the first time it was bad. Coma inducing. We weren’t together and I wasn’t so funny playing exhausted/in pain. Philippe said we could have another try but he couldn’t see it going well. I made a snap decision to put Barbara in the shit by playing Redillon in a deep sleep. I just lay there snoring and didn’t wake up. So here’s her trying to wake me up, pushing me about, taking off my clothes, and I never wake up. 

Well, I did a few times - and shouted that what she was doing was causing me pain - but then I fell asleep again. Philippe let the scene go for quite a while, but ended it eventually (after he played the sound of snoring on his iPod first). Not a good idea!  I felt a bit bad afterwards, because I did a ‘nasty’ (but with fun) thing to Barbara. And she was upset afterwards not so much because of me, but because she doesn’t feel confident improvising. Especially in English. But as Thomas our movement teacher said to me after “you have to risk as an actor.”

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Mia and Lee presented the scene from A Flea In Her Ear with the wife quickly sneaking home before her angry cuckolded husband arrives, certain that he saw her at the Hotel Pussy Galore. Their performance didn’t work. They weren’t ‘feeling it’, there was no game, they weren’t together. And they were stuck on how to change it. Philippe said they had to change - anything. They tried again (after a bit of a struggle because they didn’t know what to do) and Mia was more alive, and Lee was louder - pushing. Again it didn’t work. 

"We have to find something else. We have to find something different."

Philippe ended up working with Lee, getting him to stop presenting himself - Lee - as an idiot on stage, and instead present himself as an actor - Lee the actor - as an idiot on stage. A really good distinction.

"You have to think you sell your body as an actor - not as Lee...We have to come back to Lee who pretends to be an actor."

"If you believe you are an actor you could be a beautiful idiot on the stage."

"We think Lee is an idiot - not actor."

"I sell my life - my body - as an actor."

Lee looks like he's an idiot. When he walks on stage we want to laugh. He's a good clown. But Philippe was encouraging him to take ownership of himself. To give him control of his inner idiot. He is an actor using how he looks to take us somewhere. It's the choice of an actor. If Lee doesn't take that choice - pretending to be an 'actor' - then he looks like he really is an idiot. But as an 'actor' we think he's playing an idiot. Which is true. He's not an idiot at all. But it's good to know how an audience dreams around you and to play with that.