We had a few hours of training which all appeared to focus on the need for the clown to be himself as an actor would, but with a difference, there wouldn't be that split second spontaneity that arises especially after taking a couple of Meisner workshops.
The actor has to work with his buddy much as he does in stage acting but there is a delay between the "majeur" and "mineur" as our Francophone coach and clown explained.
He referred to an essential period of tension between the white clown or the well-behaved one and the red one, or the misbehaved one. There will be interaction between the two but based on a creation of tension distinct from the role play of "normal" acting as the audience accepts the fact, that now the red clown will incorporate this time element into his response…and in the interval there will be that squaring off of roles. The tension will produce a result, often enough it's the red clown that gets some punishment as a reward!
At our last class we did our yoga warm-up as usual and then we sat in groups of five in front of an audience, our task was to get the audience laughing and without working too hard at it, I mean without appearing to be an actor. We were given hot potatoes in our mouths and asked to explain an imaginary accident we had before coming to class. The more we focused on giving a clear account of the event the less we succeeded in the exercise. Time would run out if we weren't careful; the addition of the time element actually prompted some actors to abolish their unaccepted scenarios and try something else. I elicited laughs when I was least aware, at the end of a period of trying to make funny faces, I put my hands to my face in exasperation. That got a laugh. The answer to my dilemma lay there: I should be myself.
We were asked to copy other actors' ways of walking. The idea was we all had to walk aimlessly around the class trying to avoid each other and then we were asked to spot someone whose walk we were supposed to imitate. We were then asked to pair up with that person for the next exercise of playing majeur, mineur as mentioned before. I was in a group totaling three and so this exercise was a bit more complicated: I was the final clown taking the wrath of the other two but in succession.
We were told to entertain the audience again but with a poem or rhyme in another accent. Since accents help me develop an alter ego, I couldn't help but entertain the audience with a story of the three little pigs in Italian.
