"One Idea Is Always The Best."

We continued with yesterday's Slovenien exercise: "Have fun to make us believe you speak this language."

Philippe was much harder on us today, kicking people off the stage far swifter than normal, and some people took his criticism to heart today too. There were a few people crying in the audience, and you could feel the weight in the room.

"When it's a catastrophe you have to do something...otherwise you leave."

~

Jonathan and I gave the exercise a go - we tried many things - but nobody laughed. "Too much acting...horrible." Philippe said that we need to have little private moments between ourselves, especially if we don't understand why the audience aren't laughing.

~

"Everything you do you hope that an impresario is there to sign a contract."

"Always you do something idiot – and you dream of your contract in Hollywood."

"It's the dream of something that makes the clown beautiful… If you don't have this dream you will be [a] Covent Garden clown."

"We have to see the clown behind the character happy to present himself like this."

"Bad is good if you are not ashamed"

I was thinking about another difference between actor and clown: An actor doesn't come out of their character. But a clown comes in and out. A clown plays a bit, then stops and checks in with the audience, then plays a bit more. An actor never stops and checks in like this.

Philippe noted that we don't see our pleasure to be in our costumes any more like we did in the beginning. And this pride is important.

"It's shit because you don't have a dream."

"It's good when we see 'ah the artist doesn't know what to do'… And wuhp! he says the show!"

~

After, we did an exercise in which we had to play an important person. You say to Monsieur Marcel "I want to play someone with a big responsibility...like the boss of British Petroleum. 

And Monsieur Marcel says "he receives a lot of faxes." And that's all we know.

So we all gave that a go, either by ourselves or with an assistant. Philippe recommended having an assistant, but to make sure they are lower than you. It's nice to see a clown happy to be an assistant too. To come out on their cue and be helpful. And often we loved the assistant more than the boss.

~

I had a go as the boss and Hannah was my assistant. At first I spoke in a loud voice with a Scottish accent talking about how busy I am. I stopped and took a look at the audience...nothing. Then I tried an asian accent and yelled "Assistant!" Hannah then rushed out to my side, and I said "You have faxes for me?" Hannah then ran off stage and returned quickly saying "I have so many faxes for you" pretending to give me faxes. As she left again I repeated "Assistant! You have faxes for me?" and a game was created in which Hannah was rushing on and off stage with more faxes, and the more she did this, the crazier we got. The audience were laughing a lot, and when we started to reach a climax Philippe played the music again so that we could leave the stage with our game.

At the end Philippe said "Not too bad." He noted that we had good complicité, the pleasure of a child, and that we made a good point by having just one idea. "One idea is always the best." So that was a good discovery and a good moment in an otherwise fairly bleak day!

"It's a game between two idiots who want to make us believe they know something about fax."