[vocal exercises]
Alright. Just getting loosened up. Usually we warm up a little bit before a drama class.
I just want to get my mind aligned to absorb the leaders' performances at recent debates.
He's very good at pretending things.
He can't even remember how many times he put blackface on
because the fact of the matter is he's always wearing a mask.
He puts on a reconciliation mask and then fires the attorney general,
the first one of indigenous background.
What is Andrew Scheer doing?
Basically if we were talking in WWE terms, he went right away for the jugular.
He knows that to win it's not so much about his ideas but how his main rival is perceived.
An interesting side note there is that we kind of see somebody who's adopting a
repetitive physical motion to put forward brick on brick on brick with his points.
This is something I think he might have borrowed from Stephen Harper
who also had the kind of bricklayers' physical approach to communication
keeping his ideas clear and separate.
Mr. Bernier, after hearing what was just said, you could have just said "Hey man, I messed up."
Because those are pretty horrible tweets that you made.
And really for me, I mean it should come as no surprise to you.
I believe a leader is not someone who tries to divide people or to pit people against each other.
A true leader is someone who tries to find bridges, bringing people together.
That's what a leader does.
Jagmeet is aware that there is a triangle between...
When I say a triangle...if I talk about them as characters the way you would analyze a play
you'd think that conversation is between Jagmeet and Bernier
but really it's between Jagmeet and all the Canadians watching.
I think what he chooses to, do knowing that the combative nature of the structure of the debate,
it was important for him to achieve a human quality to his interactions
and let everyone else fall on their own swords of disrespect and antagonism.
Here, when people talk across each other or on top of each other in a drama class,
I would instantly stop that and say
There's no way that this is building a scene that anyone can follow.
It's a waste of time.
And everybody looks like they don't know what they're doing
because they're making no space for being affected by who they're speaking to
and that's the name of the game in drama: watching people affect one another.
We built this country together and we want this country to be like that in 25 years.
We love this country and it's not because I want to have a discussion about immigration...
Mr Bernier, your role on this stage seems to be is to say publicly what Mr. Scheer thinks privately.
The way it was shown on television, you have a split screen. You have both people talking.
Bernier is making his point and you can see actually the moment
where Trudeau knows what he's going to launch as a kind of one-liner
to undermine Mr. Bernier and his arguments.
And you see that he is waiting for the right moment to drop it. You see that.
As an actor and as director, that would have been a successful moment
of listening and finding the timing to drop a moment
where even though he's speaking over the other person his point was in keeping with what was being discussed
and blended with the audience and you even hear a reaction there.
So that would be a laugh line in the theatre.
In 2001, when I was a teacher. I was in Vancouver.
I attended an end-of-year gala where the theme was Arabian Nights.
I dressed up in Aladdin costume and put makeup on.
I shouldn't have done that. I should have known better, but I didn't.
And I'm really sorry.
What's most interesting if i were analyzing the character is that
he could not use his trademark forceful drive of language here
because that drive would belie contrition very clearly.
He could not correct it with a two-sentence idea.
He needed, which is what you kind of saw, to be the 10-year-old boy with popsicle on his face
who wasn't supposed to eat the popsicle.
So I feel fear. I feel genuine fear through that section
because he's not able to use his usual tools to address the public
and I also feel that he kind of loses a capacity to find a new message for this moment beyond the contrition.
Where I think it might have been very interesting for him to open the conversation on forgiveness
when you ask for change.