"You Have To Have An End."

Thomas presented Shakespeare's If Music Be The Food Of Love monologue today. He had Mia playing guitar and singing whilst he said the text (in German) in a deep 'beautiful' way. Philippe said it's "very nice but fucking boring for love."

"Not 'magic of love'. Too much boring."

Philippe got Thomas to play the drums, and be accompanied by Duncan playing the harmonica, whilst Thomas said the text. In this way Thomas comes more alive. He's lighter and has a lot more pleasure. The music helps a lot obviously, but perhaps if we took the drums away but kept Thomas in the same zone he's in with the drums, it would be a lot better.

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Ben and I presented our erection problem scene again, with Ben imitating our movement teacher behind me whilst I played a deep british lord. It really worked. People were cracking up, and I was nearly cracking up myself. I feel a bit uneasy about the scene however, because I feel like the audience loves the scene because of Ben. If you took him away, we wouldn't love the scene. But after thinking about this (I'm writing this post a few days later than it actually happened) I've realised we both are important in making the scene work. We wouldn't necessarily love Ben without me either. He needs a fixed point to be funny. I need a crazy guy jumping behind me to be funny too. I asked Philippe what I can do to play better, and he said just for me to play deep. So I can do that. The pleasure of playing deep. And what Ben does behind me totally undermines my 'deepness'...which makes it funny. I asked at the end of class whether the audience actually hears the text - because I suspect that they look at and laugh at Ben but don't actually listen to the text (which is important for understanding the plot of a play) - but Philippe said yes they do hear it. I'm not sure I agree. He knows the text already, so it's not the same as asking somebody that has never seen the play, but I'll have to take his word. But even if the audience doesn't quite understand the point of the scene, they still laugh their heads off. And I'd rather go to a show and laugh the whole way through it but not have a clue what really happened, then go to a show and understand everything but not laugh one bit.

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Lee tried a comedy number for the Cabaret in which he brought on a chair and then was never completely happy with how it was on the stage, and kept moving it. But it wasn't funny and it went on forever. Philippe told Lee he has to write it.

"You have to have an end."

"You need to have an idea of the story."

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I tried improvising a scene between Camille (the character that can't pronounce words correctly) and Finache (the doctor) with Mike, but it didn't work because Mike didn't quite understand the scene. He needs to play that he understands everything Camille says, but he played that he didn't understand. And Philippe said Camille "doesn't need to be nervous" - which is what I've been playing a lot lately. I said I think it needs the text to work. It's really hard to improvise the guy that doesn't speak properly without it. And Philippe agreed. So I'm going to find a Camille scene and present it.

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We decided not to do the cabaret this Thursday because there haven't been enough numbers presented. I am one of those that haven't presented anything, but with French lessons in the morning I just haven't had the time to work on anything. I could have presented something small, a poem or something, but I want to present something more thought out. More worked on. And I think we're all pretty in the world of Vaudeville at the moment, so it's hard to jump out of that. A bit disappointing, but also a relief.