“This One Is No Problem. Everybody Is Good. Everybody.”

Crunch time. Today we started showing scenes to get into next week’s show. Either a yes or a no.

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Sophia, Mia, Katy and I presented our Chamber Pot scene which we had worked on a lot since the last time we presented it. We fixed the first half by having better games and complicité together (this came after nearly wanting to kill each other) and by adding some physical gags too. It went really well - things clicked. 

“This one is no problem. Everybody is good. Everybody.”

Great to be accepted into the show, but also just great to get our scene working and for us all to be happy after a bit of struggle.

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Mike tried his Jail Bird monologue again, but crumbled 10 seconds in out of nervousness. He asked if he could do it again. “It’s impossible to trust you - every night you have a crisis.” He did have another go, and although he finished it this time, it wasn’t any better. Not listening. No pleasure. No fixed point. But it’s fucking hard when you’re nervous like we all were today. “No.”

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Mia, Vicky and Lee presented their scene again, after working on making the seduction of Redillon (Lee’s character) clearer. “Not possible for Monday [night]”...meaning they can work on it and show again next week for Tuesday night. Philippe said he couldn’t understand Mia, and that he wasn’t sure if they have fun together.

Also, “Redillon is not a fucker in our head”...and he should be.

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Ben and I presented the scene from Jail Bird we had improvised last week with the arm wrestle. We worked on it for a few hours before class, finding physical games (taking off each other’s mustache, wig, and jacket) and rehearsing a bit. It was the first day we really had our lines down too. We had done a few good run throughs, but we decided to just play on stage...but in practice that went wrong. We were heavy, way too loud (“like a demonstration”) and it got hysterical. “Like this, impossible.” It needs to be gentlemanly. And the arm wrestle needs to come out of a game. We didn’t set up the situation well. 

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Steph showed her Winter’s Tale monologue again in the style of the VIP at Chateau Versailles, but she didn’t have the same quality as with the room full of people. “We don’t think all the time she wants to be beautiful...She has something militant and boring.”

She tried a second time, and she improved. It was more beautiful. She was more open. But it was long. So Philippe accepted her for Monday night but they are cutting the monologue in half, and if she’s good in the show then they might increase the length more and more.

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Lee tried his Ionesco monologue again. “We don’t see any feeling...Your feeling, your panic, your love for Daisy - we don’t see anything...So we are bored.”

“You have to have fun to put passion.”

He tried again, but this time it became aggressive. “It’s not good to be aggressive. It’s not good for anybody.”

Lee also tried his “I’m leaving” monologue with the Hitler-fit, but he couldn’t make it work. I think because he didn’t ease into it well enough. He was trying to listen to us, to try to get us to warm to him, but we wanted him to do something. He got quite upset because he felt like he got up when he didn’t really want to.

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Another day of presentations tomorrow. I feel a bit relieved because I already have two scenes in the show - the chamber pot scene and the erection scene - so the issue of me wanting to get in the show is irrelevant. And it made the “no” for Ben and my arm wrestle scene okay. But I feel for many of my classmates at the moment. 

“When we are bad we have a beautiful humanity coming.”