"And The White Man Came To Africa!"

Philippe got all the tramps in the class to say Ben's apartheid text as an ensemble. At the end he got them all to sing to the sound of African drumming "and the white man came to Africa!" This was one of those situations where you wonder whether what we are doing in class is racist. But we weren't making fun of African people. We were doing it so say "fuck you" to the oppressors.

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Philippe also got all the transvestites to come together on stage and sing to the Westside Story song America with lyrics about not wanting to be gay. I did a rap. It was bad.

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Philippe worked with Barbara as her punk Bouffon. He got her to dance to punk music and show us what it is to be a punk. He then got all the tramps to surround her and to say "we could care less for love...for justice" whilst every now and then Barbara would step forward and scream "FUCK YOU!!!" at the top of her lungs - finishing in a strong pose. 

Barbara looks a bit like this.

"She is too much anger to be Bouffon... She could be a young Bouffon." As in, she has the rage of youth, which wears off with age and understanding. The older Bouffons understand the rage doesn't get you anywhere.

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We also tried the Royal Family wedding scene again, but this time with Vicky as Princess Katie. With her body shape and face, it worked better. She's not unattractive at all, but she doesn't look like a royal princess, so it's funny. 

Philippe also coached Sophia about the voice she used when doing 'the weather'. What she did was too good an imitation. "It's not the same voice as your Bouffon... It has to be your voice as a Bouffon." That is, have your Bouffon imitate a BBC voice, but badly.

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Vicky presented a scene as Mother Ubu. 

"We have to see this nasty woman so happy to be still alive." 

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I asked Philippe again why we shouldn't take the costume of the person we are wanting to destroy. He said: "If you wear the costume of the person you'll be too much with the character." And if you're too much with the character you're less with the Bouffon. When you're with the character it can still be parody. But when you're with the Bouffon you can speak from those that have been oppressed and banished. It's darker. It has more guts.