“To Be Exact Is The Problem Of Everybody”

Thomas presented a monologue from the ‘dickheads’ text aka La Compote.

Compote

What he did at first was a bit pushed, an idea, and boring. Philippe then got Thomas to take off his wig, to speak in his own voice, and be slow, still, and simple. Sometimes he would walk. Sometimes he would speak text very fast. Sometimes he would laugh a little. He had a good fixed point and was much more watchable in this way.

“Like this we start to love him...and he doesn’t do so much.”

“You don’t do too much, but us, we dream something in our heads.”

“We start to look at you as if you were you.”

“Acting, it is in this way...We have to see always something special from you.”

Thomas expressed a fear of crossing the line from being sensitive and light the way he was today, and being boring. Philippe replied by saying “to be exact is the problem of everybody” and said it could take a long time but its with working towards it.

“You don’t have to feel ashamed...you have to [make] mistakes to discover something else.”

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Ben tried the ‘Adam’s masturbating’ text again dressed as a transvestite and speaking with an Irish man’s accent. But it didn’t work. I think because he’s not looking to us. He’s not discovering with us. Instead he’s imposing something on us. It’s not super heavy or horrible. We just don’t love him. Ben spoke about how he doesn’t know what to do and is lost, so Philippe got all the transvestites to make a chorus around him and for him to say the text to Mexican party music like yesterday. But he was blocked and it was bad. We also tried two choruses, the other led by Duncan playing Adam, but Ben still was stuck. Philippe then got Ben to swap costumes with Mark who Philippe affectionately calls ‘the whale’. But it wasn’t really for Ben (the class actually turned into a bit of ‘make-fun-of-Ben class), it was for Mark. While they got changed...

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Mia presented a number criticising the Swiss government for banning Minarets in Switzerland. 

She had a Swiss flag in the corner of the stage, she was dressed as her prostitute, and she spoke text in a calm clear voice whilst dancing to Thomas’ drumming which got faster and faster. But Philippe said it wasn’t clear and it wasn’t Bouffon. 

He then asked Mia to say a tagline from the government about the issue: “Etes vous pour l’interdiction de construire des minarets sur le territoire Suisse?” (Are you for the banning of the construction of minarets in the Swiss territory?). He got Vicky to say it to in Swiss-German. Then he got Mia and Vicky to sit on opposite sides of the stage diagonally and had them say their line one by one repeating in a crescendo. Meanwhile he got Mark, dressed in Ben’s pink transvestite costume, to dance like a belly dancer whilst standing on top of the Swiss flag, which by the end was pretty ripped up. “That is Bouffon.”

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“When we have an idea we don’t know if it works or not.” We have to try it!

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At the end of class Akron presented a scene he’d written as Murray Antoinette. It was about a camping trip, and completely bizzarre, but as Philippe said: “we are happy.” He spoke about how now Akron needs to make an hour and ten minutes of this stuff...which is complicated!

“How you take a taxi has to be so special!”