"You Were Fucking Good."

Friday! The end of the week! The end of the performance run! The end of the workshop! I made it!

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Had a great day today. Came in early to school to watch the first year's Mélodrama showing, which was never particularly Mélo...but often hilarious! 

We had a super quick class with Philippe in which he closed off the workshop thanking Michiko, Élena,  and Vicky, and wished us 'Merde' for the show (I hadn't heard this until recently but it's a French tradition - like the English "break a leg" - apparently it's bad luck to say "thank you" to the merde-wishing, instead you say "je prend" (I take)).

Then we all went to the park 10 minutes down the road which has geese and a big lake (it's really nice) for a celebratory lunch and drinks in the sun (the weather has suddenly become great at the moment).

Like Western Springs Park in Auckland, but the park is smaller and the geese are bigger.

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The show tonight was fantastic! It was a full house with lots of guests (including Amanda and her new friend Paola) and there was a real buzz in the room. I was really happy with my performances (although Puck was never really up to my standard - as Amanda said, the costume made it more than the actor). I got a great hooting applause for Edmund which I'm really proud of. And Ben was brilliant in our erection scene. Completely hopeless with his lines and cues, but he had the audience in his hands. And I did well not to corpse! And the chamber pot scene was incredible. I've never performed in a scene/show in which people have laughed so hard the whole way through. It's a great feeling. I had several kind of chills of pleasure when people burst into laughter (which nearly made me laugh myself). Our timing was great. And these 'little gaps' for the audience Philippe suggested we have came naturally, because people were laughing so much that we had to wait!

I briefly said thank you to Philippe for the workshop after the show and he said:


"You were fucking good." 

That's easily the best complement I've had from him. And it means a lot damnit! I had a lot of great feedback from people actually. Light, consistent, funny. And I feel really happy with the work I've done this week and throughout the whole workshop. It's been a bit of a rocky ride but funnily enough none of that matters at the end. I feel great and really happy to have gone through it.


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Core Things I've Learnt From Vaudeville:

• Be light.
• Be ridiculous. Madness is good.
• Costume (Moustache) helps a lot.
• Rhythm is key - be with the music of your scene and your fellow actors - and listen.
• Ride the audience a bit. Play to them. Adjust your timing for them.
• Game. Game. Game!

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Three weeks break now and then ten weeks of Bouffon. I'm going to do some writing, some planning, and some relaxing.