Autocourse presentations today. We had to continue the scene Philippe described a few days ago in which a boy writes a letter to his parents saying ‘I am a homosexual’ and leaves it in the house. To say fuck you to people who say ‘I’d rather be dead than have a homo for a son.’
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Sam and Mark did a number in which they imitated a biggot Australian-couple, but it seemed like they were mocking Australians more than people who are against gay people.
“You have to be subtle. You have to touch us.”
“It’s not ha ha ha. Ha ha ha is for idiots.”
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Katy presented a solo number in which she sang. “It’s a bit boring or I am drunk?”
“It’s a bit sugar - we look at this show and we get diabetes - too nice.”
He got her to do her text in the style of Rock‘n’Roll, a broadway musical, rap, and a christmas song. The christmas song worked well. She sang Silent Night but changed the lyrics to say nasty things like “Santa doesn’t visit gays.”
“You are good as a perverse angel.”
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And then my groups scene. It hurts to write this, because it was the most painful moment of my time at Gaulier I’ve ever had. The biggest flop. But we got killed so hard too.
I was in a group with Steph and Lee. We decided to go with an idea that mirrors how some parents choose to punish their children when they are caught smoking: they put them off it by forcing them to smoke a whole packet in one go. So the bigot parents that we played forced Lee to have sex with five gay men in order to put him off being gay. I know.
The process of making wasn’t much fun. I was really trying to get away from vulgarity as much as possible. I didn’t want us saying swear words and dirty innuendo etc, although I was okay with the actual horrible act of punishment. I didn’t have any better ideas - why not? But Steph and I banged heads a lot in writing it. I kept trying to sway us away from being vulgar, but when I did that it came across like I wasn’t accepting any of her ideas and that I just wanted to do it my way. I was told “I’m difficult to work with” which made me quite sensitive, and in the end, because I don’t want to be the guy that doesn’t collaborate with anyone - that always runs the show, I eased off and just went with where the group wanted to go. The process was also really rushed (it didn’t help that I couldn’t be at school on Wednesday) and although we had organised a time to brief our ‘gay-men’ on what to do, when it came to that time they all couldn’t do it because they were still rushing on their own pieces. So they got told only a few minutes before going on. We never got a chance to rehearse. And Steph and Lee and I were improvising too, because we didn’t have the time to really rehearse with lines learned. Or, because there wasn’t a great feeling in the group, people avoided coming to rehearsal on time so that we could prepare properly. I don’t know.
Then the actual performance of it was horrible. Steph and I were really heavy. Not together at all, and lines fell out the window. When the five gay guys came on, because we’d never rehearsed it, when they took Lee off stage to gang rape him (to classical music) they all did it at the same time, REALLY loudly and violently. Not how I imagined it at all. So that was ugly. And Lee’s speech at the end, in which he was going to say “Look everybody, I’m normal now, aren’t you happy...” wasn’t in a light place either. The whole thing was just terrible. And we got slammed for it.
“Just shit...Just horrible...Vulgar...No actor complicité...Shitty idea...No humanity...No beauty...Nothing.”
I felt so shitty afterwards. I was extra nervous because Sam Scott (a theatre director from New Zealand who has come to do Characters) was in the room watching. And in that moment I had the biggest flop of my life!
Philippe seemed quite pissed off. He said what we did was the opposite of what he’s been teaching and that there’s nothing to learn from what we did. I disagree. I learnt a lot from it actually. I learnt not to present stuff that isn’t worthy of presenting (I wish we had just decided not to show - that’s what the group that was supposed to go after us did - although I think by going so far in the wrong direction also is something for everyone to learn from). I learnt what it feels like to present stuff you’re not proud of. I learned what it’s like to be in a group that’s not clicking - that’s sticky and hard to get moving - and that feels like people are pissed off with you. I learned that when you’re given a set of parameters to make something from, but you just can’t think of anything good to do, then stuff the parameters and do something you want to do. And by getting it so wrong two weeks in a row, I’ve learned (the hard way) that it’s not vulgarity and shock factor at all that makes Bouffon Bouffon. It’s beauty and humanity and truth that makes it. Truth from the banished. But what we did was vulgar people saying vulgar text and doing vulgar things. So all you get is vulgar vulgar vulgar. Lesson learnt.
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