Peter Brook drank my orange juice

I am up to my neck in preparations for taking a group of 28 Americans around France, to places I've never visited before, all the while giving amusing and informative commentary. I had been briefed all afternoon and couldn't really be bothered to go to the jolly to meet the new British Ambassador at the British Council, but as I was just around the corner and the nibbles tend to be good I decided not to be pathetic and pop in.

The problem with these things is that you never know anyone, or at least that's always the fear. Actually the Parisian ex-pat community is so small that there's a high chance you'll see someone you know, but walking in past all the men in suits I was very conscious that a) I was all on my own and b) that I was the only person wearing jeans.

Imagine my relief when I saw another person wearing jeans, though admittedly much smarter and newer black jeans that could nearly be proper trousers. But I thought, 'well, if it's ok for Peter Brook to wear jeans, it's ok for me too'.

He was surrounded by a group of people and I didn't really know what to do so I went and stood by the window and looked out at the view onto the stretch leading up to Invalides and the Eiffel Tour. A lady came over and started talking to me and we took me over to the drinks and nibbles table to get a drink. As I was planning to work later with superhuman strength I resisted the free champagne and went for orange juice instead. She worked represented film for the British Council and told me about the things she was organising at the moment on women and film and then in a whirl and I'm not quite sure how, Mr Brook and another man came over and then they both left and I was left all alone talking to Peter Brook!

I think I went rather pink. But we started chatting and I said he'd just directed on of my teachers, Joss Houben, in a play. He said, 'oh yes, Joss, he's a good actor and a good man' which is a lovely thing to say about anyone, and also in this case true. Then somehow we were talking about me and I was telling him about working with autistic teenagers before I came to Lecoq. His eyes went very bright and he seemed very interested and asked what I'd done with them. I gave a general answer and he asked what specific exercise I'd done. My stupid befuddled brain couldn't remember very well. Then he told me about going to a mental hospital in France with his actors where the nurses said, oh you won't be able to do anything with them and he did an exercise with bamboo sticks where they had to raise them up, and of course they did.

Then the nibbles came round and he took a bite and started coughing and coughing. I wasn't quite sure what to do. Usually I'd give someone a good slap on the back, but he looked rather frail and I was afraid that if I did I might kill him and then I'd have killed Peter Brook and the theatrical establishment would be very cross with me. I said, 'something must have gone down the wrong way, as my mum would say' and offered him some of my orange juice, which he took.

He was just about recovered and we were starting chatting again when the man from Porlock arrived in the shape of L****** who I know from a mutual organisation. I said 'L*****, Peter Brook'. L***** obviously had absolutely no idea who he was and started chuntering away to me about something very dull. Peter drifted off and I ended up talking to L***** and someone who worked at Sciences Po who told us all about it for a very long time.

I wasn't really listening. I was chuckling happily away to myself. Who would have thought it eh?

Spring Soiree

Anne spelt with an E

To the uninitiated 'Anne of Green Gables' is one of the best things, like, ever. All of it - books, TV mini series with Megan Follows and Colleen Dewhurst, spin off series of the other many works of the truly prolific Lucy Maud Montgomery - all very, very good stuff in my opinion. It is only due to Anne of Green Gables that I can confidently spell the word chrysanthemum!

I have discovered (thank you A***, thank you J**) that you can get Anne via you tube in bite size ten minutes portions. These Annelets and of course my old friends tea and radio 4 are helping me ward off soiree stress.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2px3wrJqQXs&NR

As all Anne fans will know Anne spells her name with an E. Ideally she would rather be called Cordelia, and who can argue with that, but at the very least please spell Anne with an e. Infinitely more elegant and refined. And it seems the french have a similar pedancy about language.

Chatting to M**** and J******* tonight they were saying how precise the french are about language and finding exactly the right word to explain what you mean. Apparently J******** had to tell M**** to simplify her language last year as she was using a mixture of argot (slang) and very old classical french in order to explain her autocours ideas with necessary, french precision. She said, 'J**** has learned a lot from me'. He was celebrating his birthday tonight. I checked his straight line abilities after about 4 pints and a few shots of JD and he was still straight as an arrow.

So, the french may be swanky with their language, but we Brits can drink fuck-loads and still walk in a straight line.

Oh dear. That's really not something to boast about, is it.

All things in proportion

I've been working on a chorus piece for the soiree, a cut of texts taken from Women of Troy, a beautiful version by Kenneth Mcleish and Bagdad Burning. Plus ca change.

We're all stressed. To my shame I burst into tears a couple of times yesterday. Then I came home and read some of her blog and it rather put things in proportion.

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com

The Rape of Sabrine...

It takes a lot to get the energy and resolution to blog lately. I guess it’s mainly because just thinking about the state of Iraq leaves me drained and depressed. But I had to write tonight.

As I write this, Oprah is on Channel 4 (one of the MBC channels we get on Nilesat), showing Americans how to get out of debt. Her guest speaker is telling a studio full of American women who seem to have over-shopped that they could probably do with fewer designer products. As they talk about increasing incomes and fortunes, Sabrine Al-Janabi, a young Iraqi woman, is on Al Jazeera telling how Iraqi security forces abducted her from her home and raped her. You can only see her eyes, her voice is hoarse and it keeps breaking as she speaks. In the end she tells the reporter that she can’t talk about it anymore and she covers her eyes with shame.

She might just be the bravest Iraqi woman ever. Everyone knows American forces and Iraqi security forces are raping women (and men), but this is possibly the first woman who publicly comes out and tells about it using her actual name. Hearing her tell her story physically makes my heart ache. Some people will call her a liar. Others (including pro-war Iraqis) will call her a prostitute- shame on you in advance.

I wonder what excuse they used when they took her. It’s most likely she’s one of the thousands of people they round up under the general headline of ‘terrorist suspect’. She might have been one of those subtitles you read on CNN or BBC or Arabiya, “13 insurgents captured by Iraqi security forces.” The men who raped her are those same security forces Bush and Condi are so proud of- you know- the ones the Americans trained. It’s a chapter right out of the book that documents American occupation in Iraq: the chapter that will tell the story of 14-year-old Abeer who was raped, killed and burned with her little sister and parents.

They abducted her from her house in an area in southern Baghdad called Hai Al Amil. No- it wasn’t a gang. It was Iraqi peace keeping or security forces- the ones trained by Americans? You know them. She was brutally gang-raped and is now telling the story. Half her face is covered for security reasons or reasons of privacy. I translated what she said below.


“I told him, ‘I don’t have anything [I did not do anything].’ He said, 'You don’t have anything?’ One of them threw me on the ground and my head hit the tiles. He did what he did- I mean he raped me. The second one came and raped me. The third one also raped me. [Pause- sobbing] I begged them and cried, and one of them covered my mouth. [Unclear, crying] Another one of them came and said, 'Are you finished? We also want our turn.' So they answered, ‘No, an American committee came.’ They took me to the judge.


Anchorwoman: Sabrine Al Janabi said that one of the security forces videotaped/photographed her and threatened to kill her if she told anyone about the rape. Another officer raped her after she saw the investigative judge.

Sabrine continuing:
“One of them, he said… I told him, ‘Please- by your father and mother- let me go.’ He said, ‘No, no- by my mother’s soul I’ll let you go- but on one condition, you give me one single thing.’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘[I want] to rape you.’ I told him, ‘No- I can’t.’ So he took me to a room with a weapon… It had a weapon, a Klashnikov, a small bed [Unclear], he sat me on it. So [the officer came] and told him, ‘Leave her to me.’ I swore to him on the Quran, I told him, ‘By the light of the Prophet I don’t do such things…’ He said, ‘You don’t do such things?’ I said, ‘Yes’.

[Crying] He picked up a black hose, like a pipe. He hit me on the thigh. [Crying] I told him, ‘What do you want from me? Do you want me to tell you rape me? But I can’t… I’m not one of those ***** [Prostitutes] I don’t do such things.’ So he said to me, ‘We take what we want and what we don’t want we kill. That’s that.’ [Sobbing] I can’t anymore… please, I can’t finish.”

I look at this woman and I can’t feel anything but rage. What did we gain? I know that looking at her, foreigners will never be able to relate. They’ll feel pity and maybe some anger, but she’s one of us. She’s not a girl in jeans and a t-shirt so there will only be a vague sort of sympathy. Poor third-world countries- that is what their womenfolk tolerate. Just know that we never had to tolerate this before. There was a time when Iraqis were safe in the streets. That time is long gone. We consoled ourselves after the war with the fact that we at least had a modicum of safety in our homes. Homes are sacred, aren’t they? That is gone too.

She’s just one of tens, possibly hundreds, of Iraqi women who are violated in their own homes and in Iraqi prisons. She looks like cousins I have. She looks like friends. She looks like a neighbor I sometimes used to pause to gossip with in the street. Every Iraqi who looks at her will see a cousin, a friend, a sister, a mother, an aunt…

Humanitarian organizations are warning that three Iraqi women are to be executed next month. The women are Wassan Talib, Zainab Fadhil and Liqa Omar Muhammad. They are being accused of 'terrorism', i.e. having ties to the Iraqi resistance. It could mean they are relatives of people suspected of being in the resistance. Or it could mean they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. One of them gave birth in the prison. I wonder what kind of torture they've endured. Let no one say Iraqi women didn't get at least SOME equality under the American occupation- we are now equally as likely to get executed.

And yet, as the situation continues to deteriorate both for Iraqis inside and outside of Iraq, and for Americans inside Iraq, Americans in America are still debating on the state of the war and occupation- are they winning or losing? Is it better or worse.

Let me clear it up for any moron with lingering doubts: It’s worse. It’s over. You lost. You lost the day your tanks rolled into Baghdad to the cheers of your imported, American-trained monkeys. You lost every single family whose home your soldiers violated. You lost every sane, red-blooded Iraqi when the Abu Ghraib pictures came out and verified your atrocities behind prison walls as well as the ones we see in our streets. You lost when you brought murderers, looters, gangsters and militia heads to power and hailed them as Iraq’s first democratic government. You lost when a gruesome execution was dubbed your biggest accomplishment. You lost the respect and reputation you once had. You lost more than 3000 troops. That is what you lost America. I hope the oil, at least, made it worthwhile.

Bujegustei plut que?

OH my god we are all so stressed it's unbelievable. Everybody is stressed because they have too much time but can't rehearse because they can't get their groups together because everyone is rehearsing too many things.

To my shame I ended up in tears at about 6 o'clock, first of all in the passageway between the Lem and the school where no one could see me. Then I went to wash my face so no one would know in the toilets where I met J** and S***** who said, 'are you okay?' and I burst into tears again. And then again in the vestaire. And then again in Mauri 7. I am ashamed of myself. It was a beautiful sunset, all my family and friends are well. Why am I crying because my pieces aren't going well? Pathetic.


So for light relief the picture above and this story.

My american friend has another american friend who happened to be in Paris. This person didn't know any french at all. They went into a cafe and sat down. The server came over and friend's friend said
'bu je su boojee ej kesoopsk' because they didn't speak any french.
And the waiter brought them a coffee.

For me the most amazing part of this story is that the waiter brought them a coffee. A parisian waiter! Unbelievable. Maybe it was Tim. Where is Tim? I haven't seen him in ages.

While rehearsing one of my English things we were talking about how we bastardise both the english and french language at the same time. 'Oh no! I've tromped.' Can we metre the public over there?' ' we really need to equlibre the plateau'. 'You got to use your basin more'. 'I keep forgeting to push my plexus'.

There are some words and phrases that just don't seem right in english any more - audience (c'est quoi ca?) Pelvis (ugh! sounds like a very bad pop group from the 80's) Chest - well that just doesn't mean the same as plexus, does it?

Oh yes and

I forgot one of the funniest things from last night. N**
'You English are so tiring to work with'.
(This after me saying how wierd it was being in a group last week with so many people from group C last year and how they all seemed to jump back into their group C dynamic.)
'Every time we're about to start running it again you all have to take about five minutes with your little comments and jokes and laughing at them'.
This is completely true. We do do this. I hadn't realised how irritating it was. I think of it as putting people at ease and keeping the work spirit relaxed and happy. In fact, in monday's very stressed rehearsal all those little jokes and gufaws were noticeably absent.
' - and you are the worst! You make little comments and jokes to yourself and then laugh to yourself'.
This too is very true, and I find very funny. I've been thinking about it and chuckling away to myself ever since he said it. You know what they say - first sign of madness.

Le Cerise Blue

I've just got home, stupidly. But when you're tired and stressed somehow being even more tired doesn't seem to matter. Drinking in bar of above name, cheese plate and all. My brain isn't working very well now, so probably not a good moment to be writing, but there you go. I should have been reading guide books in preparation for taking a bus load of American teenagers to destinations I haven't been to in France. I'm going to have to do a lot of Lecoq style question inverting... 'well, which mountain do you think Mont Blanc is'. I did this in the summer and followed similar tactics 'it's a garden', 'it's a church' etc. when asked the generic 'what that?' question.

Was in the bar with W****** ,S***** and N**. It was one of the funniest evenings I've had in a long time. We were having the standards, 'what did you do before you came to lecoq' conversation but the answers were way above average.

N** directed a production of 'Hair' with teenagers in jail. I think this was somehow supposed to encourage them to join the Israeli army. Hair is a pacifist musical. (Dear God, that such a term exists!) If I understood correctly Israel has military service, so in order to get out of, 'killing Arabs' my friend pretended to be mad in his interview with the doctor. As he is both intelligent and a good actor he didn't just have a normal conversation with the doctor and then try and jump out the window at the end of the session. Instead he, subtly, told the doctor that he 'always had to get in the shower first and would get very angry if he couldn't' and that he 'had to eat first when in the canteen' or he'd get very angry. It worked a treat. They found him seriously unbalanced - so they sent him to work with children!!

Meanwhile in Vienna S***** was trying to get into the Austrian equivalent of RADA. For her speeches she chose Metosopheles from Faust, Hinkel from Chaplin's film 'The Great Dictator' and, because her friend insisted she do at least one female speech, Medea. S**** is very keen on costume and props. She always has a huge sack of props stashed away and appears the most unlikely of things at a moments notice. Very useful for autocours. She told us that she had carefully planned her speeches so she could change from costume to costume very quickly and that it was most efficient if she started with Hinkel.

So, in she goes. There they are behind the desk. She gets into her Hinkel costume, just as he is in the Great Dictator, suit and little Hitler moustache. She does the speech, which seems to go down well and then goes behind the screen to change into her next costume which is for Medea. By the time she comes out her nerves are getting the better of her and in order to calm herself and keep in control (!!) she improvises and does the speech with a Swiss accent.
'Why Swiss?' I asked.
'Weeeel, the swees accent is veery sloowe, you know?'
Well, I do now. Unfortunately as well as doing Medea very slowly and Swiss she had forgotten to take off her Hitler moustache. Perhaps unsurprisingly the audition panel were in fits of laughter by the time she finished.
'What do you want to do?' they asked her. 'Do you want to play Juliet in Romeo and Juliet?'
'No' she replied.
'You're a clown' they told her.
So she came to learn to be a clown. But before that she worked as a road sweeper with lots of alcoholics. At first they didn't think she could do the job, but when she showed them, convinced them they were delighted.
'We're going to the pub' they'd tell her, at 7am in the morning. Give us a sign if the boss comes. Which as she's so nice she probably would have done.
Phew! Bed. I'm knackered.

Manifestations

There were SIXTEEN policemen standing on the corner opposite Mauri 7 on Saturday. SIXTEEN!! All to guard the bastard Sarkozy from people wearing cut out paper masks. Ooo! Scary. (Please, no not the paper! Not the glue! I'll do anything you like but don't put the winne the pooh mask on...)

It seems to me a little excessive.

Examine your diaries please

Just so you know the spring Soiree is on Wednesday 21st March for students and Thursday 22nd March for the rest.

Then the final Soiree is, allegedly on Wednesday 30th and Thursday 31st May.

And by a process of elimination the week of the Commands starts Monday 18th June and ends on Thursday 21st June and we get chucked out for perpetuity on 22nd.

Then, hopefully and all going well I will be traveling Europe doing workshops with teenagers from poor areas with a charity ending in Paris some time in October on their version of 'Make Poverty History' day. I'll be working with musicians, puppeteers, photo and film artist and generally nice and interesting people. Keep your fingers crossed it all works out. Hurrah!

Spanish Time

As an inherently late person I absolutely cannot complain about the timekeeping of others. I tend to be slightly relieved when other people are late in an, it's not just me kind of way. I am relatively organised.

Perhaps then it's churlish of me to be a little alarmed about having two of our Spanish boys S**** and A**** running the soiree. They've both grown their hair very long and moustaches at the moment and looked like two of the three musketeers as they lounged behind the desk getting propositions for the soiree.

We became an unbridled rabble, chatting loudly, eating and wandering around to have little talks with people on the other side of the room about how many scenes we could seriously work on and which should be jettisoned already. I have already cut my five down to four, and may cut again by the end of the day. You can only sensibly propose a few things or you won't have enough time to do any of them justice. Even if you have time to work on them other people won't.

I'm just a little afraid that under their Mediterranean management relaxation will reach a point where the whole thing will arrive a day or two late.

I am starting a movement early for the next soiree. S**** McG**** for President (or should I call you Rose?). We need her English pink-and-white-efficiency up front.
'Ahem, excuse me everyone. I'm not just sitting up here for my own amusement you know. Could everybody please listen to me? Right. This is what's going to happen...'. The Soiree will be run with clockwork efficiency.

McG**** for President! C'mon everyone, join in with me, McG**** for President! You know it's right.

Soiree Fever Again

We've all been scurrying around this week muttering to each other ...'I've got an idea for the Soiree. Do you fancy trying to do a mix of bouffon and mystere cut with a Nick Cave song?' and things like this.

Here I am at home on a Friday night when I could be out drinking at the Australian Embassy with lots of eligible Australian men (and my friends A** and S****) and instead I'm at home trying to cut Titus Andronicus and 'Keep Young and Beautiful' together. Yes, soiree madness is here again.

And why is it always at times like this I think, 'I know, now would be a good time to defrost the fridge!'. Am I completely deranged? No, now is a dreadful time to defrost the fridge. Anyway, I've started now.

It seems the 10eme is going up in the world. Sarkozy the bastard french politician, and probably the next President has rented an office just around the corner from Lecoq. I didn't realise until earlier this week, though I did wonder why for the past several weeks there have been policemen standing outside Chez Jeanette. To be honest, I thought they were doing some not-very-undercover-surveillance of Mauri 7 - the Albanian mafia, or perhaps Tim's drug dealing, but the real reason is much less interesting. Sometimes there are people having manifestations in the street and I'm very tempted to go and join in instead of going to school. I've always wanted to sit down in the middle of the street. Actually that's a complete lie, I've never wanted to sit down in the middle of the street.

My counter has disappeared so I don't know how many people are checking any more. Or how many times my mum is checking. Well, that's what you get from shoddy free stuff from goodness knows what Internet site! That won't teach me!

Time for bed I think. I'm going a little insane.

Tourists

I love tourists, especially American ones. Follow a group around any museum or gallery and you're almost assured amusement. Often their comments are more interesting than the exhibits themselves.

Overheard in the Louvre...

disappointed..."But it's just like all the other Mona Lisa's'...

Overheard outside Hotel de Ville...

..."You know, it's not actually a hotel"...

Overheard in the Uffizi.... (my favourite so far)

..."Don't you find it's sinister that the baby is always a boy?"

Please feel free to add your own over hearings.

The tragic chorus performed tragically

I'm so tired. I think perhaps because each time we start an improvisation for our chorus text we start by running around the room. Put all those attempts together and you must have something approaching a half marathon.

We still seem so far away from the crystalline clarity and brilliance, vocal and visually, but I've found it a really interesting and engaged work. And I feel I've worked in a harder and more concentrated way than I have all term, and am convinced that this is useful work for the future.

And the future is closer and closer. O***, our lovely friend from first year, is visiting from Engerland this weekend. It's great how much he's done and puts everything in proportion. And then again it doesn't.