Tuesday, October 23, 2012

"Everybody In The Audience Needs To Have The Feeling: I Am Friends With The Clown."

We continued with the same exercise as yesterday. Two clowns entering on stage together and being with their family (the audience). Trying to make us laugh and love them.

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A major lesson today was speaking LOUD.


"First, you need to speak loud. Otherwise you stay with your character...If you don't speak loud you stay with yourself." Speaking loudly leads to extreme gestures... Many things.

"When you are normal you're not clown. You have to find something special." Having/picking a 'friend' in the audience is important. It's nice. And you can do a little sign/wink/wave to them. Something private and strange. Small. Don't play little characters. It's bigger.

Sometimes if someone in the audience had a burst of energy – like Yun Yun screaming she is not Chinese – Philippe gets them up on stage as a clown. We need energy. Impulse. Speak louder! Even shouting!

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Another major lesson was getting the audience to love you, and to feel involved.

"The love of the audience is the most important thing we can see for clown."

"Everybody in the audience needs to have the feeling: I am friends with the clown."

Philippe led one pair of clowns to enter - look to the audience - look to partner – repeat that – and then do a little shout to the audience. "Hey!" Like this, we feel involved.

It's interesting: We start to see the clown after a performance has ended. Often when the actor is being killed. We see a real human idiot. Vulnerability and sensitivity. But when they play we see nothing.

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"You have to feel ridiculous… And you have to try to put away many ridiculous things."

"If you play 1mm too much we don't love you. We love you if you're smiling like a teenager. But if you play too much as an actor we do not love you. That is the big problem of clown."

"Look at us and do something to try to make us laugh. Always."


"Don't play the pleasure."


When you are told you're bad you can protest. It can lead to something funny.

It's good to change your voice. Not to speak with your normal voice. To have a problem. To speak loud. To have an accent.

"We think she does something to make us laugh?"

"You have to make us believe it's not a mistake. It's written in the play!" Don't show any shame or shock. Everything is going to plan...

"You need to smile three seconds after doing something. Not immediately."


"If your thing is not funny but you have a fantastic pleasure to do it, we will love you." So you can do anything as long as you have great pleasure.

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