Then into Philippe's class. Today's entire class was dedicated to the character of the Fanatical Priest - a kind of stock character of Bouffon. Again, the idea is to parody the fanatical priest, not to play them truthfully, but unlike in the bastard exercise you aren't just describing them you are actually performing as them. It's a very fine line. Philippe summed it up as: "If you play the character then it is not parody because you are not commenting on this person. To parody you must do it in a way that you are commenting on the bastard to say 'they are a piece of s***.'" Nevertheless, a lot of people still struggled with finding this balance (and with a lot of other things too).
One of the big mistakes that people made in their playing of this character was that they didn't play a 'fanatic' in the true sense of the word. Even if they were still parodying their person, if the person we're seeing isn't fanatical then they are just a harmless idiot and the parody isn't as funny and is kind of meaningless. One girl had the audience laughing a lot at what she was doing but it wasn't the religious fanatic, so Philippe stopped her and said: "She is not fanatic yet; she is optimist girl scout. A fanatic needs to tell the sinners they were burn in hell. We have to feel the fanatic is dangerous. Even the calm fanatic we feel can still kill someone with a knife."
So the first group up had mixed success with the exercise. There were two people in that group who I felt did the exercise really well - Taylor was one of them and he found some really funny stuff as his particular brand of religious fanatic. It was very direct and kind of angry and blustery and you could see he was having a good time. The other guy did a kind of slightly creepy and a bit camp Canadian televangelist which was very very funny and had some really excellent moments. They both had a lot of fun with it and worked the audience well which are really key components of this work.
So then I decided that I wanted to get up and have a turn with the second group. You had the option to dress up a bit if you wanted and give yourself a deformity if you felt you wanted it. I went pretty simple with just a big belly underneath my black long-sleeved top tucked into my track pants and hair brushed to the side. It was the first time so far in the Bouffon workshop that I feel a costume has worked in my favour and actually helped me, and I think it was to do with the simplicity of it and with not trying to make the costume too outrageous in and of itself. So we walked out onstage as a group to some very happy-clappy music, and one by one had turns addressing our congregation. I was second up, and when it came to my turn I had an absolute blast. I had the audience with me pretty much from the get-go, and I had them laughing and cheering and hallelujah-ing along with me - it was great. I felt that I really just let myself relax into it and I genuinely had a lot of fun. It was also the first time that I was really working in a way that I had abandoned my clever ideas and moment by moment didn't know what I would say next, and that really worked for me. I brought sinners from the audience up on stage with me and with the audience put Jesus into them and preached about light and dark and a house of Jesus built from Jesus-nails and Jesus-gapfiller. I had no idea what I was doing and it was amazing fun and the audience really responded to it. Also, I didn't get banged off at all - I got to finish my sermon on my terms and find my own end to it rather than getting stopped by Philippe (he even said "not bad", which is pretty good praise from him). I got a big round of applause and all in all it felt really good.
Reflecting on it now and trying to work out why it went well for me this time and what I did well to make it happen, I think there are a couple of elements at play. I think there's a fast rhythm that I could find within this particular archetype that served me well: because I think often my mind is working so fast it's really helpful for me to be working that quickly as well so my mind can't plan ahead and sabotage me with good ideas. At the best moments I felt like my brain was about half a step behind whatever I was actually doing or saying, and that produced the funniest moments. However, within this I also took several moments to change the rhythm, to slow down or stop, and to take the time to imagine like Philippe told me to on Monday. The key thing here I think is that these moments weren't planned: it was an instinctive feeling that the rhythm should be changed and I followed it, and then I let myself have fun with it and imagine before I took it somewhere else. I didn't force the scene to go anywhere, I let it take me where it needed to go. Also the relationship with the audience was really helpful for me: the relationship contract was clear and so I knew exactly how I could and couldn't use or relate to my audience and so I was able to play around with it (playing with direct address is also something that I think I'm reasonably good at). Another thing within this particular exercise that I found helpful is the shared familiar vocabulary of the fanatical priest. Because it's such a strong and familiar archetype, there is a certain shared and understood vocabulary that goes along with it - a lot of buzzwords that the performer can use to joke with the audience and these can be a very quick and easy way into a sense of fun.
The rest of the class was watching other people try the same fanatical priest character with varying degrees of success. More confusion over what exactly qualifies as a 'fanatic' and several reminders that the character still needs to be charming and fun, not just angry and hateful, or we lose interest.
As usual some more great quotes and insults from Philippe today. Here are some of my favourites:
- "Even if the priest is boring the actor who plays the priest must never be boring. So idiot what you suggest. When you say this we are sure you are from Belgium."
- "I know the snow is big problem for TGV. Many TGV will not start because of the snow. Maybe it is the same problem with your mind."
- "Music teacher for Mongol, or fanatic priest?"
- "Was she extremely boring, or was she writing a beautiful page in the story of theatre?"
And, one of my personal favourites, and one that I think sums up a lot of Philippe's attitude to theatre:
"We all have a very strong machine to dream around what is real. It is in us all... somewhere. I don't know where. The 'real' is boring for theatre. The 'real' is boring even for real life. Every time we see something 'real' we are dreaming around it of something else, something more."
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