The Rise of the Modern Bouffon

It was the first day of modern Bouffon today. There was a mixture of transvestites, homeless people, mad people, and the unemployed. 

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Philippe put some Bouffons together to create couples, like Mia’s transvestite/prostitute with Vicky’s bearded unemployed man. Philippe asked us whether we think Vicky’s Bouffon is a man or a woman. I thought a man, but Philippe spoke about how she’d have to be really convincing - especially with the voice - for us to believe her. “In our head it’s important - if we don’t think Vicky is a man, we’ll never think she’s a man.”

Barbara was dressed as a woman dressing like a man: A Manvestite? He worked with her a little, but she had trouble finding anything. “You forgot to be beautiful...You have to have dignity...something special.”

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Then he got us to get up in groups of five and dance to music, and when it was our turn, step forward and do a commercial for a bank. Chic!

 It wasn’t clear whether we should do this as our characters, or to try and do it as well as we can disregarding how we look, and when asked, Philippe never made this any clearer...The troubles of language! But we still had a go. I was horrible. My group all got upstaged but Akron whose transvestite costume was awful - like a guy who had tried to appear like a woman but had done a really bad job (which is probably exactly what Akron did) - but his strange dance moves and comments like “I’m just starting out in the transvestite business” made everybody love him. It’s like acting your heart out next to a toddler. No matter what you do you can’t beat the cute toddler! But oh well. 

Mark’s unemployed rough british Bouffon was fantastic. Philippe got him to do an advert for washing powder on top of the mountains between the Soviet Union and China. So here’s Mark yelling at the audience about messy kids and blood and mud and how a good washing powder is so important. 

“Persil! It’s the shit.” It was a lot of fun.

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Today felt a lot like Characters all over again. Which for me brings back memories of crisis and not knowing what the fuck to do! But it’s day one. And if nothing else, I look damn good as a long-haired red-head woman...