‘Absolutely funny’: Simon McBurney on how the great clown Philippe Gaulier changed his life | stage

MEveryone talks about a teacher in their childhood who changed them, someone who revealed to them knowledge about the world that they carry with them for the rest of their lives. I didn’t have one of those. It wasn’t until I was 24 and living in Paris that I stumbled upon Philippe’s class almost by chance. Provocative, demanding, deliberately inappropriate and very funny, Philip taught me not to carry anything. No baggage, no ideas. Knowing nothing is all you need. Because we’re all silly.

His mother was Spanish, and we enjoyed her meals when she came to cook for him, or rather with him, at his house. apartment It was lined up with his writings, many of which were “I listen“engraved on the spine. He would refer to his father as ‘M Salah Bourgeois“(That bourgeois bastard) and was happy to tell the story of being expelled from school when he was eight because he punched a gymnastics teacher who was trying to instill discipline in young boys by turning them into military soldiers.

Among the professions and situations that deserved his wrath — the military, the church, hypocrisy, falsehood, shams, politicians, academics, fascists — “Collaborators“It had a special place in his heart. For a boy growing up in post-war France, this slur was reserved for those who deserved it.”It’s a collaboration of a dog mix“—a petty collaborator, though this translation does nothing toward the amused disgust and food taste with which he spat those words out from under his moustache.

A tangled mass of unruly black wires obscuring the entire area between his nose and lower lip, the mustache was instantly fascinating to me on my first encounter, on a cold November evening in 1980 in his studio on Avenue Alfred de Vigny. That, with his pipe clenched tightly between his teeth. Then the wild hair, the flowing bright green jacket, the old shoes, and the eyes (rimmed with round glasses) that missed nothing, took nothing seriously and ferociously examined every possibility of fun or pretentiousness.

The room was full of people who didn’t know what to expect but had heard that there was something Philippe Julier was offering that you couldn’t get anywhere else.

I shook his hand.
Stop.
He looks.
“Welcome.”
“Welcome.”
Stop.
He looks.
“Are you English?”
“Yes…er…oi.”
“The whole world is full of problems.“

What did he just say? Everyone has problems? The hand is still held. Sparkling eyes.
Evil laughter.
First lesson.

“Moi“He put his hand on his stomach.”Yes, I am the professor, you… you are the teacher.“

The rules are set. Rules of the game. The game from the beginning was that he was the teacher, and you were the students. The gymnastics teacher is parodied, and the power relationship is presented as a structure that can be undermined and destroyed with laughter.

There was no style, no set ideas, but each person was meticulously groomed, taken apart, rebuilt again, invited, insulted, flattered, pleased and, most importantly, manipulated. He played with each one of us with infinite generosity, excruciating hilarity, indefatigable persistence, and utterly spontaneous flexibility.

We are taught to fail and to start over; We learned to let go of our ideas, because the ideas were never the problem, it was only the implementation of them. When people laugh at you, it reveals the truth, which is why we hate being laughed at in real life. But with Philip we can learn that failing to embrace this vulnerable feeling of vulnerability was antithetical to revealing our humanity.

Sharing this fallibility in a complicit relationship with the public is a radical act. A chaotic connection that can’t be found in any other art form.

“If an actor has forgotten what it was to play as a child, he shouldn’t be an actor,” he would say to me as he took me to the bar on the lunch break before the afternoon session. At that point he decided that I would be his assistant and we were to discuss serious matters in the afternoon session.

“Tiens, mon petit, on va chercher de l’inspiration.“
Then, leaning across the bar, putting the tube in his mouth…
“Deux grands Martini solutions…“