An exercise has gone badly wrong at École Philippe Gaulier. “You are the definition of a bad student,” croaks the septuagenarian teacher. “This is boring. It is so shit!” Gaulier’s student gawps at him, chastened and gormless, as his classmates laugh cheerfully at his discomfort. It’s a fate that you, I and the rest of the non-ridiculous world might cross continents to avoid. But for those aspiring to be funny, this is the place to be – and Gaulier’s tongue-lashings are an exquisite form of torture.
“I had moments of extreme suffering there,” remembers Phil Burgers, better known for his stage persona, the smouldering silent clown Doctor Brown. “It’s really, really hard. But once you can handle the insults, something inside you cracks and you can begin.”
What began for Burgers at the school led to an Edinburgh comedy award in 2012: his cult popularity is the main reason why “Gaulier-trained” is now a buzzword on many a comic’s publicity. On the Edinburgh fringe, which begins this week, no fewer than 14 comedy acts boast of a Gaulier education, including oddball standup John-Luke Roberts, double act Zach and Viggo, and sketch troupe Plague of Idiots.
But Gaulier’s guru status long predates this purple patch: his alumni include Emma Thompson and Simon McBurney, Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen. “Gaulier,” the Ali G star has said, “is the greatest living teacher of clown and modern theatre, and the funniest man I’ve ever met.” Having started as a student, then a colleague, of the physical theatre maestro Jacques Lecoq, Gaulier has run his own college – in France, then the UK, and now in Étampes, near Paris – for 36 years. He isn’t modest about its virtues. “If you come for a year,” he rasps, “we change your life.”
When I visit on a sunny summer day, his class includes the young British standup Elf Lyons, here for a year to study being funny (and to take courses in Greek tragedy, melodrama and Chekhov) at the clown-feet of the master. You can learn a la carte, taking one three-week course at a time, and stay for up to two years. Fees are €2,300 a term and there are no auditions (“because the role of the teacher is to change the person, not to judge them”). Enrolment is first-come, first-served; students are of all ages, but are mainly young and from many countries, although Brits slightly predominate. Some are aspiring comics, but Gaulier’s institute is not just a clown school, far less a place to learn standup. “It is a theatre school,” he growls. “I hate standup comedy. I would never teach something so horrible.”
Gaulier is not a man to mince words, but neither is he the ogre legend implies. This grizzled, straggle-haired goblin of a man couldn’t look or sound more like a “clown guru” if he tried, but there’s humour and warmth behind every blunt statement and volley of abuse (“I don’t give a tiny shit!”). The first class I attend begins with a kissing session: students request bisous from one another, and from Gaulier, to atone for mild wrongdoings. Then Gaulier distributes red noses. This classic prop, he says, lays bare what performers were like as children – and infant playfulness is at the core of his teaching. But first comes a comedy routine, as the old sage demonstrates, with references to Sigmund Freud and much orgasmic groaning, how to insert string into the nose.
An actor shouldn't be too comfortable. If you want to be comfortable, you should be a pharmacist
There follows an exercise in which red-nosed students “boo!” at the audience. Gaulier then proposes to each a costume tailored to their particular spirit: a church mouse in love with a priest; a character from the Asterix books; Confucius; a Boy Scout. “When they come in on Monday with the costume,” he tells me, “they will feel ridiculous. And ridiculousness is good for a clown. It’s good for everything. To feel ridiculous and sensitive is a part of freedom.”
This is the kernel of Gaulier philosophy: good performers (in comedy or theatre – there’s no difference) are in touch with their own unique absurdity, and have fun celebrating it on stage. Is that something anyone can do? “It’s not difficult to be ridiculous,” he replies, with a great Gallic shrug. “You look at people, and normally after five seconds they are ridiculous.” Maybe, but not everyone is comfortable showing it. “If you are an actor, you shouldn’t be comfortable. If you want to be comfortable, you should be a pharmacist.”
READ MORE AT SOURCE: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/aug/02/philippe-gaulier-clown-school-emma-thompson-sacha-baron-cohen-edinburgh-festival-interview
QUOTE by PHILIP GAULIER
“If you are an actor, you shouldn’t be comfortable. If you want to be comfortable, you should be a pharmacist.”
WHAT I WISH FOR YOU TODAY
If you’re a kangaroo, don’t envy the fish. Just BE the best damn KANGAROO. Leave swimming to the fishes.