Lecoqian misconceptions

There are some things that do not seem to translate culturally and so provide difficulites in characterization general understanding between teachers and students. One of the main of these is that lepoard skin is classy, whereas in the UK leopard skin anything is the universal sign of a slapper.
Though to be fair leopard skin has made a bit of a come back recently. One very dear friend in Britain pulled her boyfriend about seven years ago in a leopard skin dress. We like to say she was ahead of her time rather than a slapper.
I don't want to dwell on unhappy memories from first year, but another difference of opinion is certainly what the phrase '100%' means. Remember the 100% animals week, where we actually were 100% animals in the human world?
And another of my bug-bears is the idea, often touted by Krikor, that there are bouffons in Shakespeare. Now, I'm working on the pedagogical basis that bouffons are these strange creatures who look at humans and mock them, essentially not in human form, but perfectly happy to dress up like them. Liz's bouffon had a triangular head. The only thing remotely like that in Shakespeare that I know of is Caliban, and he doesn't really mock humanity. Or Falstaff or Toby Belch I suppose you could say. But they are both fat men. Neither of them have triangular heads though they do have 'bands' that they drink and fart with.
W****** has pointed out to me that I've been doing a lot less blogging than I used to and you may have noticed that when I do it's usually only to recommend something on youtube. I am becoming a dreadful, dreadful addict. Every night I come home and look up something. Sometimes recommendations for school - Spike Jones, Karl Valentin and Denny Willis. And then as you have seen old favourtites - Anne of Green Gables, Willo the wisp and Taxi. And then anything that takes my fancy... I have found myself linking on from one thing to another and have ended up, shame on me, on a completely hillarious sequence of kisses from Jane Austen films set to some awful song by Bryan Adams. Though I have to admit Bryan was my first live pop concert aged about 13. You see how uncool I was. 'Got my first real 6 string... ooo, played it at the five and dime...' And now I'm thinking. Hum, where could I see a bit of that video? Where indeed.
You want to find an old bit of thirtysomething or my so called life. You want to see some hancocks half hour or monty python, you want to see Hancock's egg adverts with Patricia Hayes or the last episode of sex and the city.... ah and it just goes on. Almost anything that you can think of has been downloaded by someone somewhere. Dangerous, very, very dangerous.

I went and saw a clown show last night and had the fortune/misfortune to be sitting next to it's director J**. I had a Belgian running commentary all the way through 'Oh, that wasn't supposed to happen... That was my idea! The planes have got twisted up, he won't be able to do the next bit now. There's supposed to be a huge drop of planes now. It's hasn't happened. You see how he's playing anyway, even though it's all gone wrong?'

Happily autocours went well for me yesterday. Especially happily because I had one of my old teachers from my last drama school watching. She is an ex-Lecoq student too, and never particularly liked me or thought I was talented at drama school. I though I saw her watching Christophe's lesson on Thursday where we were making up poem, but from the mezzanine level above. Then I though, no, no I'm being stupid. I've just got that paranoid feeling that my old teacher who though I was crap is watching me fuck up yet again. And then she came up to me just before the first year's autocours and said hello. Well, at least I'm not a paranoid fantasist. I said, 'oh, I thought I saw you watching yesterday's lesson.' And she said 'yes, clown can be so excruciating can't it'. Lovely. Thanks.
Anyhow our autocours rocked so yah boo sucks to you.

The origins of granny

I'd always thought I'd nicked it straight from the grandmother in Odon Von Hovath's 'Tales from the Vienna Woods' but on watching the I wonder if there was another earlier influence on my granny character.
How I love you tube.
Willo the Wisp - the potion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFKTeZ-tSGU&mode=related&search=

Clown

We're all buckling under the worry of not being funny, except the happy few who do manage to make people laugh. And the teachers are giving us an 'only a few weeks left' hard time. They do not need to give me an 'only a few weeks left' hard time. I am well aware that we only have three more weeks of being taught and then the soiree and then the commands, and that clown is almost at an end and I've in no way cracked it.

And paranoidly I feel that everyone has several exciting things lined up and I have nothing. Talking to A**** last night he was very much in the 'I can't wait to get out there line'. I've already been out there and now I want to stay in here for a bit longer. I know how scary out there is, but don't take my word for it. I'm re-reading Peter Brook's 'The Empty Space' which I highly recommend to those of you who haven't (and Phillip Roth's The Plot against America which is also excellent, in fact anything by Roth is pretty much guaranteed to be good).

I first read 'The Empty Space' the last time I was at drama school, so about 10 years ago. I get it a lot better now. Some of it is so apt and precise it makes me laugh out loud.
(on bad theatre)
'Almost every season in most theatre-loving towns, there is one great success that defies these rules; one play that succeeds not despite of but because of dullness. After all, one associates culture and long speeches with the sensation of being bored, so conversely, just the right degree of boringness is a reassuring guarantee of a worthwhile event.'
My friend S**** was telling me this weekend about a play at the Almedia in London that had had rave reviews and she went with a friend and got very bored. Her friend,who is an actress, wouldn't reply and was very shifty when she said this to her and after they left said, 'I can't say anything when we're in a theatre. I always think I might be sitting next to a casting director and I might suddenly have an audition with them the next day and what would they think if they'd heard me bitching about a play they'd cast'.

You see how mad actors are? Brook again:
'In England, it seems suddenly that we have a marvellous new breed of young actors- we feel we are witnessing two lines of men in a factory facing opposite directions: one line shuffles out grey, tired; the other strides forward fresh and vital. We get the impression that one line is better than the other, that the lively line is made of better stock. This is partly ture, but in the end the new shift will be as tired and grey as the old; it is an inevitable result of certain conditions that have not yet changed. the tragedy is that the professional status of actors over the age of thirty is seldom a true reflection of their talents. There are countloess actors who never have the chance to develop their inborn potential to its proper fruition.'

I am one of these old, sad tired actors over the age of 30 who knows that they're not one of the very gifted and a part of me wonders if it's all worth it at all. I mean, if I can't get clown, why even bother?

On the other hand that is very defeatest and I still have two days left so I'm going to go for a swim and buy a new clown costume.

Research

I'm taking Clown very seriously and doing lots of research on Marx Brothers Films and other serious intellectual works like that. My research has even stretched to bits of 'Taxi' on Youtube.
So for your delight and delectation I present...
What does the yellow light mean? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAjP86tWypQ&mode=related&search=
and Vic Ferrari
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLUXa9jNzIc&mode=related&search=
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p3oF7fVX-s&mode=related&search=
It's wonderful stuff.

One more term

I cannot tell you what bliss it is to be able to cross the road without being followed by 26 americans. Thank heavens that is over. The plus side is that it makes me fully apreciate and look forward to getting back to school. J'hate, I believe the term is in french.

I filled in my spotlight form today. (I don't look as good in reality as in the photo. Same problem with my passport photo. I foolishly put on make-up and had it taken in black and white so I look quite nice, over pouty, but nice. When I go through the passport checks, espcially on the French side, the people checking always do a double take and look incredulously from the nice photo to the bedraggled reality in front of them and then swipe the passport through a machine to check it really is me.)

£124 for my picture in a book for casting directors to ignore. Ugh. I am really not looking forward to my blissful two years of living in France and doing what I love every day ending, to going back to scurrying around London, skint, trying to juggle 100 things at once- looking for acting work, writing letters, doing my day a week in my co-operative agency, temping and a thousand other hideous, badly- paid temporary jobs. It's like looking down from heaven into hell and knowing the fall is inevitable. I really hope that I'm able to take some perspective on it all, to make some big changes and not just go back to things exactly as they were before. Because Paris is so much cheaper it's possible to have a decent quality of life here. In London as soon as you walk out the door it costs £50, and the door itself won't be cheap.

I just want to stay here forever and work with Monouchkine. (Went and saw Les Iphermeres again yesterday. Still brilliant even after only 5 hours sleep.) I want, I want.... don't you just hate whingy actors.