“Don’t Try To Be Funny. Just Show Your Humanity.”

Parody a ham actor

 “Don’t try to be funny. Just show your humanity.”

Look to the audience. Who wants to kill me?

I got up first and had a go, but was bad. “Painful.” And I got up again with Katy and we were both bad. Heavy. Pushing.

~

Parody Children’s Theatre

André was really great at this, and had the audience responding to his questions. There was also a great moment when André, Lee and Mark all did a children’s show together. Philippe said after that we love Lee when he admits he’s not a good actor like André. We love him just as much as when André is a good actor. And in Bouffon, a pathetic Bouffon can work. “You can be pathetic without being funny.”

I got up in a group with Ben and Akron and Ben went on first, but then beckoned Akron and I on to the stage in his improvisation. Philippe soon killed this bad impro, saying that I was horrible. Ben tried to save it in character, meanwhile I’m kind of cracking up on stage. Eventually I interrupted Ben and said to the audience in a children’s theatre tone, “Does everybody want to know why Guy was bad? Because Ben put Guy in the shit!” It was a funny moment.

Afterwards Ben tried again, again beckoning us onstage. But I stayed off, shouting from backstage “Fuck off Ben! I’m not coming on! I’ve had enough of this fucking tour! I can’t live with you in a caravan any longer!” Philippe said “the fun is good”.

~

Experimental theatre

This bombed. Nothing worked. In fact, today was quite a lull day for the class. There were good moments, but we lingered on exercises for too long when they weren’t working. Usually Philippe’s good at killing an exercise when it’s not clicking, but today it just kept going. 

~

It feels a bit like we don’t really know what we’re looking for. I don’t. It’s not clear like other forms in which there is something, a reference, to aim for. Philippe keeps speaking about us finding our Bouffon - Sophia said he said this for Clown (our Clown, which is a little clearer) - but what that looks like nobody knows.

“We don’t see your Bouffon beauty...he has a beautiful face of someone who suffers.”

You don’t have to make people laugh...you can be mysterious...surprising...BUT it’s better to make people laugh because “people not laughing - they are dangerous and they could kill you.”

~

An up and down day for me. But generally felt bad. I’m way too heavy at the moment. I need to be much more sensitive. Listen and look at the audience. Today I got up a lot but without ever really getting into a zone to play lightly. To calculate. My work today felt a bit sacrificial. I don’t want to just get up to take one for the team. But I shouldn’t be too hard on myself either. I’ll learn from these crashes, so its okay.