Merdre! turned out good, better than I ever expected. It all started when Ingrid and Julie asked me to help with their spring term project. They had a new tutor who let them divide into groups for individual work and somehow didn’t mind, that all the british students formed one group and the two french girls formed another. The german chick tried to work with the brits, but gave up eventually when it became too much of an inside thing with all the other participants, working, studying, sleeping and eating together.
Anyway, Erasmus is supposed to be about bounding and making new friends, so the french girls thought that I would bring something from the outside to their friendly little idea of doing King Ubu from the perspective of food. Food meaning power – when you eat, you are happy, the one that feeds you, has power over you.
We flipped it to the modern utopia of a restaurant, where the customer imagines himself to be the one in power. And so it all started. Ubu is a puppet, the stomach of the actor playing restaurant customer. All the characters he sweeps off his way, are made of food. Because of his hunger, Ubu destroys the delicious King Wenceslas and unexpectedly becomes King, continuing to gobble up the people and the nobility of his new kingdom. On the other side, the waitress has Ma Ubu on her stomach, encouraging Ubu to eat more and more, advancing through the evil plots of ruling the world. In the end, the revengeous prince Bougrelas got Ubu drunk of the Armagnac and made him leave without paying the bill. Merdre!
I really have to say I enjoyed the little group of ours. I think Ingrid and Julie are awfully smart people and they can do miracles on stage. It was an honor to see them work and react to every comment I made. Because of the lack of interest the acting tutor showed towards our project, I had the opportunity to really get into the creation process and direct a bit. A lot. Oh well, who am I kidding. It was a full-time group project with them on stage and me in the audience. And I liked every second of it.
They want to continue playing Merdre! in Bordeaux. I am a bit worried about the foam puppets that really have to be washed after every single performance (but the contrast between the clean, draped restaurant atmosphere and the whipped cream and carrot sauce flying around everywhere is such a wonderful part of it). All the food is real (red wine, cucumber jelly, chicken and carrots, tartailettes and coffee), also the dishes are first class Tesco quality. It’s a mess to prepare and dangerous to play (they broke three dishes during rehearsals), but plastic glasses just wouldn’t work that well.
An important thing I learned from this process, is that in stage design, most important is the industrial design part. Things might look nice, but if they don’t work or even bother, it is just awful. We made a lot of changes to the puppets during rehearsals to make them work and function more comfortably and tried several plates and dishes before ending up with the best ones.
Previously, I have often had a feeling of not being welcome at a rehearsal or that my tiny pleas of having a technical rehearsal somehow bothers people. With this small group we had lots and lots of tech rehearsals and fixed the sound and light cues perfectly. We even had some really elaborate choreography scenes set to difficult and punctual off-beat (or maybe something like 7/8 beat or who knows) music clips and the girls perfected them to excellence.
I am amazed of our synergy and now look at the theatre world in much more blue eyes than before – it is not all that bad and not everyone always hates you. I think I’ve also grown up a lot. I’m not evil to other people anymore either. It’s an excellent feeling, you know :)
She turned out a little blue, but otherwise I like it. My first try to approach the use of colours in a sensible way, thinking first and then getting the brush. The classmates said, that there is a certain Scandinavian style or touch in the colouring. Haha.
A drawing, for a change. Nothing special.
And the same lady nude from the next week. Shiny orange!
I know what you are all thinking. Yes, I also think he had a hangover. Really. But it was fun to paint, with the red nose and all. They took this for the semester exhibition.
This guy is actually a third year student, I think. The first-graders somehow pissed off the old lady that was supposed to model and then the teacher made him sit there for 1,5 hours. A short time, hence just the portrait. And he DOES look like an axe murderer in real life, too. No artistic exaggeration. I’m quite proud of myself, having achieved the actual likeness, the distinctive angle of eyes and all.
