"Everyday, C'est de la Merde...We Die With Everyday."

We were supposed to present last week's autocourse today, but only a few of us did. The task was for a gang of Bouffons to come to an anti-gay conference and say something that says "fuck you" to the anti-gays. It was tough starting the week like this! We all felt a bit cold.

~

Ben got up and presented a scene he had constructed which involved him giving a sort of lesson to the crowd, showing them different couples - a straight one, a lesbian one, and a gay one - and explaining why the straight one works but the others don't.

 But none of the performers in his piece (me included) had rehearsed it, and it came across like it had been put together 5 minutes ago. Which it had. Philippe spoke about how this shit is not acceptable. We have to aim higher. 

~

And then Sophia and I got up and presented what we had put together in the last 24 hours...

Our piece was in the style of a 1950s advertisement with a clean all-American "honey I'm home" couple called The Mary & Joe Show.

We filled it with sexual innuendo, suggesting that both of us were actually gay...

J: What's for dinner tonight honey?

M: Well I started to make your favorite...

J: Oh honey, my favorite...

M: Yes that's right, your favorite

J&M: Meatloaf!

M: Nobody loves meatloaf more than my husband

J: (Say the brand)

M: 99 cents from Uncle white middle class republican's super duper super mart.

J: So honey, what did you make instead?

M: Oh I made you something you'd really like to munch on

J: Wait! Let me guess. Is it meatballs?

M: No its not meatballs. It's nice, juicy, sausages - only 25 cents at self-superior dick's corner shop

J: Wow! What a great meal.

M: And such a great deal.

...This kind of thing. And it got more physically/visually grotesque as we went on. But we didn't get to go to the end, because what we did totally bombed. Not a laugh in the house. It was a huge flop. And Philippe really slammed us for it saying it wasn't subtle at all, there was no artistry, no beauty, bad text - it was just a "big shit."

"It was too quotidienne - everyday - and not enough beautiful."

"With buh-buh-buh you die. There is no beauty. There's no something fantastic."

"Everyday, c'est de la merde...we die with everyday."

Philippe said we have to aim much higher. To be more artistic. Not low base shitty humour - Nyahaha fake-nasty kind of stuff - which we're all kind of doing at the moment. But he said he had no problem with the fact that we presented shit. "We have to do this shit to discover something else...It's really important to do all the bad ideas." He said if you have an idea but you think it's bad "YOU DO IT!" because you will discover something from doing it. Something beautiful is only 20 metres away. It's not far. 

And he worked with us afterwards, showing us that not far from what we did was something more beautiful. We used the same happy commercial music we used in our piece, and Philippe got us to come out dancing together in slow-motion, speaking in high voices, as if we were in a commercial for strawberries, marveling at the beautiful day, the blue skies and the green fields. He then got us to dance very slowly in one spot whilst we said the text of Adam and Eve. "Has anyone ever told you you've got beautiful eyes?" At the end of the text he got us to walk backwards slowly, and spit on the ground as if we were members of the royal family. "In this way, it's more special." I actually think what we did under Philippe's direction was really boring for the audience (he asked whether it was better or not and people took a long time to say 'yes', and when they did it seemed like the felt like they had to) but the feeling of what we did was definitely better. More sensitive and light. And of course the exercise wouldn't be as polished as a rehearsed piece.

So Sophia and I went wrong in not going in a more beautiful direction. We thought since we'd mocked soap operas that mocking this old-fashioned 'nuclear family' style would be okay. But the way we did it, it wasn't. And I think we also went wrong in not being clear enough about what we were saying to the audience. We had a few different messages. We were making fun of 'straight' people who were in fact just closet-gays. We were also making fun of a very 'straight' style. And we were making fun of ignorant anti-gays. But in performance, our message wasn't clear-clear. We didn't say what I really think, which is that people that want to prevent others from being in love, are shit.

~

Tim and Ben also presented a scene in which they came out all stuffed with fake muscles and they imitated jocks working out, lifting weights, and stretching at a gym, and whilst they did it they said homophobic things.

But Philippe killed them quickly too. "You don't put on muscles to mock people with muscles." He then got them to take off the muscles and instead stand together and speak in gay voices about working out. He spoke about how Bouffons don't need to change their costume. They can mock without it.

~

Q: What is 'your Bouffon'? 

A: "The pleasure to say fuck you" to shit people.

Bouffons are "happy to belong to the kingdom of the devil."

~

Jean Genet, the writer, is great for Bouffon. 

"He was with the misery of Bouffon."

~

At the end of class there was a bit of spare time and Philippe asked if there's anyone that feels totally lost and needs some help. Somebody joked that we're all in that position, which felt fairly true. It doesn't feel like we're getting it at the moment. Charles got up as someone to be worked with. Philippe got him to walk fast with long strides (with his knees tied up), which looked difficult and ridiculous. Then he got him to mock Prince Philip. Then Prince Charles. And finally Sam from our class. Have fun! We need to see it. Use your arms! With the ugly costume, and his handicap, plus pleasure to say bad things, the Bouffon is clear.