“Take Your Space. Wait For Your Space, Then Take It.”

Mia and I got up to continue to work on our scene from On Purge (Bébé)! today, with Mia playing the rough Swiss-Français character she discovered last time we worked. I played a bit gay - a bit whiney (perhaps not such a stretch from myself). Mia wasn’t able to find the same thing, the same energy and fun, that she had last time. There was no fun either. Philippe worked with Mia a bit, said nothing to me (other than he’s getting bored with hearing “Urals...Urals..” all the time - come on!), and then told Mia to go back to her normal rich and clean Vaudeville self. We’ll find another way.

Whilst Mia changed I asked if I could try with Sophia, since she knows the text as well. We gave it a go, but again there was no real game. “No pleasure to fight.” Philippe suggested that perhaps one of us needed to be crazy/bizarre, so I volunteered to try that as it’s something I want to develop. I ended up kind of randomly singing the text in high notes held for a long time - which was me trying something in the moment - but wasn’t something that funny or nice on the ears. “Goodbye.” 

It’s frustrating because improvising the scene really worked, but with text it dies. I think it’s because when we improvised we were really together, and we were actively searching for, offering, and playing games. But we don’t have that with the text yet. Philippe is suggesting we play it in a certain way - to shout, or with an accent, or as a character, etc - but I don’t think it’s enough. We need to get more technical with the text and decide when and where we play particular games. i.e. Hear you play angry and I play scared/trying to get away. It’s harder to discover those games with the text, because the text has the games inside them already. So the next step is for us is to do ‘actions & objections’ or ‘tactics and games’, and then present again.

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Philippe then got us to create a coffin covered in black cloth placed in the centre of the stage. We all sat on benches against the side walls of the stage. We were at the funeral of George Feydeau and we had to make a speech as a great actor of Vaudeville. In the speech, you could perform a bit of text. “Play a bit.”

“Actors are always happy to go to funerals because everybody is going to see them.”

“To be an actor is not to be pretentious...it’s to have something special.”

Edith Piaf’s funeral was attended by many many artists.

I deliberately sat and waited for others to go before me, to test the class, and I was really disappointed. It took literally about three minutes of silence before anyone got up. People were really hesitant. And a few times Philippe had to warn us that he would stop the exercise if nobody wanted to get up. And then he ended up stopping it anyway because he got bored. 

Now I know I shouldn’t worry about what others do, because I can’t control them, I can only control myself. But it really annoyed me. Why are people here? It’s a waste of time, and it brings a bad energy in the class. I understand people are scared, and it can be scary to get up, especially if you haven’t been so good in the workshop. But to me, when you get up, you give something. You take a risk for the class. And there were a bunch of people today, and for pretty much the whole workshop, haven’t been giving nearly enough. It burdens the culture of the group. I don’t want to be the person who always gets up first. But I don’t want to wait forever until somebody finally gets up after three minutes as well!

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Philippe then changed the exercise to the funeral after party, and had couples come on stage dancing and then make a speech as a Vaudeville actor, with a glass of champagne, and some fun.

With a couple on stage, “it’s always good to think they will fuck...It means the complicité is good.”

I tried, and got the proud, charming, ‘actor’ quality but it was “a bit too official...needs more fun.” Tell a story. Laugh a bit. Steph came on with me, and Philippe killed her for not speaking when it was her time. He played music, then the volume faded down, and there was a moment that was hers, but she started before the music faded. “Take your space. Wait for your space, then take it.”