“You Have To Know...For The Fun...Pretend To Know!”

A new Movement teacher today: Eléna, from Italy. She trained with Philippe back when his school was in London, and is an actor/director/teacher in Madrid currently. The class was a change from the usual playing games/getting warm/acrobatics that we’re used to. We spent the class walking around and checking in with our bodies, and then running from one class to the other and jumping in the middle whilst shouting our name. Concentrating on beginning, middle, and end. I found it tedious. Too much talking, not enough moving. I have a feeling I’m not going to love Movement for the next four weeks (this kind of thing doesn’t sit well with me) but I’m going to give it a chance.

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Akron, Thomas and Vicky presented the Bouzin scene in which he tries to get a meeting with the singer. Thomas played the woman, Akron played Bouzin, and Vicky played the waiter.

Philippe said it wasn’t clear whether Thomas played a woman or a transvestite. “You have to decide.” 

“We don’t understand what you play when you enter.”

Philippe also worked with Akron, who wasn’t coming on stage with anything specific.“You have to want something.” Offer something. Make a choice. Have a game.

At one point, when he was trying to find something Akron could play in order to come across as crazy, he asked Akron who was a famous criminal from Canada. He couldn’t think of anyone. He didn’t know any. 

Later he asked Thomas to pretend to be Eva Braun but Thomas didn’t know what she was like. Philippe said “You have to know...for the fun...Pretend to know!”

“If a director asks you to do a voice and you say you don’t know you’ll never get the job because we will think ‘this person doesn’t have a half-arse-hair of imagination.’”

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Mia, Lee, and Vicky also presented their scene again in which Lee speaks French. The text fell apart again. Philippe ended up various getting pairings up on stage to gossip - in order to get some lightness I think. We gossiped about Katy. 

If someone was bad Philippe would kick them away using the “boo-o-meter”. He would say: “Goodbye Mike!” and if there are big “booo’s” from the audience then Mike would stay. If not, he’s out. I had fun to play a gay guy with Duncan, gossiping about Katy and her various sex scandals.

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After class I overheard Philippe talking about ‘knowing the spirit of place’ that plays come from. Ben wants to work a text by a famous South African writer, but can’t find a French translation for Philippe. And Philippe says he knows nothing about the spirit of South Africa so he’d be hopeless to direct the piece. Likewise he said he can’t direct Pinter because he doesn’t understand the spirit of London. I found this idea interesting. I guess as an artist you need to really know the context of the content you’re working with. If you don’t, you’ll miss the point and your work will be thin.