“You Have To Look For A Conflict”

We continued with Mais n’te promène donc pas toute nue today. We went all the way to the end of the text, in which an important politician arrives to discuss something with the husband, but the wife totally sabotages and destroys the meeting. Mia played the wife and Philippe worked with her a bit. “We don’t see you enough crazy - she’s too much bla bla bla.” This ‘crazy’ doesn’t mean too much - “not hysterical” - but over the top is good. Odd. A bit PMS/Menopause.

For example, when she was talking about having been stung by a wasp, he got her to scratch her upper leg higher and higher - showing the husband’s visitor more and more - whilst looking at (mocking) her husband.

“When we don’t see your pleasure to have a game we are bored.”

~

I got up and did the scene with Michael as the visitor and Steph as my wife. We were killed fairly early on but Philippe said nothing about my performance. We tried again. Killed. Then one more time, but this time Philippe told Mike he was only allowed to speak when Philippe hit his drum. So the scene begins with me greeting him: “Hello! How lovely it is to see you! Please come in! How are you? Can I take your coat?” ... and there’s no answer (because Philippe hasn’t hit his drum!). So I continue at a quick pace “Can I get you a drink? Tea? Coffee? Water? Juice?” ... still no answer. I keep going: “We have orange juice, pineapple, apple, strawberry, carrot, tomato. Or perhaps you’d like something fizzy? We have Fanta, Coca Cola, Cherry Coke, Lemonade.” Eventually Philippe hits his drum, and tells Mike just to say three words. “Coffee...sounds...good.”

The scene continued like this, with Mike as a mega fixed point (almost a zombie!) whilst I played around him. And fought with my wife. It put me in the shit, but forced me to continue to find games. I ended up sitting and getting quiet and intimate, saying I need his approval. “Don’t move if you like me....Ah! You do like me.” “If you agree with me, just breathe...I knew you felt the same way!” And at one point I started playing with Mike’s face: pulling his ears, prodding his face, moving his lips and squeezing his nose. It was lots of fun. I had real pleasure. And it was a good long time for me to play and discover many games. And to explore being ‘crazy’. At times Philippe led me a bit - “speak quietly now” - and I had to be sensitive to Philippe’s timing around when Mike spoke - i.e. leave a pause for him to speak, and then a pause before beginning with my fast rhythm again, but for the most part I just had to keep going! But it was really not for me. It was for Mike. “You have to discover this sort of humour - not moving too much - and after you can find another way.”

“You have to look for a conflict.”

“One guy moving and one guy not moving: you have a conflict.”

I asked Philippe whether I had any fixed points, considering I was moving all over the place all the time. But he said “you have a good fixed point. You calculate well.” Meaning I might move around a lot, but I know when to pause, or to be still when somebody else is moving. Nice to know these things I worked on a lot last year are now becoming natural!

~

At the end of class Philippe spoke a bit about ‘feeling’ on stage. 

“I start to be fucking bored with people who feel on the stage. Shut up with your feeling and have fun.”