“Well, talk, but don’t make a sound!”: Philippe Gaulier’s brilliant students talk about the glory of the clown | platform

“He gave me permission to be a fool.”

Louise Brealey

Philip taught me to laugh at myself. He had an understanding of people’s darkness, fears, and flaws—and their brighter parts, too. He described me as a “Protestant church mouse, a sex-crazed Brownie.” I felt seen! His theory was that everyone has a clown. For example, David Mitchell, who I worked with on Back, has an angry clown. When David is angry and screaming, it’s funny. Without Philip, I don’t think I would have been able to play Cass in Back, or Deb in Such Brave Girls, or Muriel in Woman in Mind, because he gave me permission to be a goofball. I can excrete urine on myself and it doesn’t hurt.

The only moment I saw Philip smile at anything I did was when I was dressed head to toe in leather, caning everyone and acting out Lady Macbeth with a German accent. I don’t know what that says about my clown: she’s a very deranged controller. I think my clown might be an idiot.

“You had to keep him entertained.”

Rachel Weisz

The most memorable for me are Philippe Buffon’s workshops. We played a game in which he was the “king” and you were the jesters or court jesters – think naughty minions – who had to entertain him. You had to be mischievous, wild, and test the limits of foolishness. But mostly you had to keep him entertained and interested, otherwise you would be kicked out of this imaginary court. You didn’t want to bore the king or get banished for going too far. He was a great teacher and one of the greatest lessons. I think about this often and feel very lucky to have learned from it.

“I failed and failed and failed”

Damien Warren Smith (Also known as Gary Starr)

I moved to the UK from Australia and found myself in groups performing classical plays where I was the butt of jokes for being uncultured. People were constantly referring to me as a convict. When I discovered clowning, I realized not only that it doesn’t matter if people don’t take me seriously, but that it’s an incredible feeling to accept it and say, “No matter what you find ridiculous about me, I give you permission to laugh at it.”

Going to school Philippe Juliet was difficult. I failed and failed and failed. I still remember the first time I really made him laugh. Two clowns were doing a scene that was going very badly, so I stepped up as Mr. Loyal, the head clown, and started clapping and saying, “I told you they were great, didn’t I?” Phillip laughed and pointed at me: “He’s a scoundrel!”

You will be your funniest, you will be alive, and you will be your most beautiful in the moment you fail. It’s not what you do that makes you funny, it’s seeing how you feel about the dirty thing you just did.

Gary Starr is a high-profile, goofy character. The reason people want to get up at my shows is because I’m the butt of the joke. I fail, but I’m very happy to fail. People who say they’ll never get on stage suddenly volunteer to do terrible things.

Philip said: You! Kick him in the ass!

Simon Monnery

At the workshops, everyone seemed to have a fun moment. We were nearing the end and he asked who didn’t have a moment. It was me and a Swiss conjurer.

He was a big, tall, muscular man and not funny in any way. He started speaking and Phillip pointed at someone and said, “You! Kick his ass!” It was like being tortured. He clearly didn’t enjoy it. “You! Kick him in the cheek!” He was messing around with this guy performing in front of him live. He tried different things until he said, “Okay, talk out loud!”

The Swiss man started screaming and it was funny. All 25 of us cried with laughter. It was real: he was very angry at the position to which he had been appointed. Later, she told him it was funny and that it wasn’t what he wanted to know. He wanted to be in control.

Then Philip had me talk and tried the same things. Nothing was working. Then he said, “Okay, talk, but don’t make any sound.” And I had a moment. It was hilarious. I couldn’t go wrong. It was like walking on a thick tightrope. I sat down and then understood why the Swiss man was upset. It was the pain of people laughing at you.

“The ghost of the game was there.”

Sally Phillips

You can apply his method to anything. I performed Shakespeare, Chekhov and Greek tragedy with him. He had Romeo and Juliet kiss each other on the nose after each line, then took the kiss out. It was very nice because there was an echo of the nose kiss, and the ghost of the game was there.

In “Smack the Pony,” I had an idea about a woman who stocks the entire supermarket with Toilet Duck and then the boss comes in and says, “Why did you do that?” I was thinking what was funny was that every time you changed the camera angle, you would see another toilet duck corridor. Then I remembered Juliet and thought: Ah! The funny thing is not knowing. It’s about how your humanity shows up when you don’t know what you’re doing. And it’s quite fun to watch. It was a girl who stopped focusing and didn’t have a good answer. It was much better than having a reason.

His teachings have enhanced my experience raising my son with Down Syndrome. Ollie never fails, he is always 100% alive and never boring. You are against productivity, against all these masks, the world does not revolve around high levels and you live in the moment. I found a language to talk to Ole because this kind of play was the foundation of my career.

“I have never seen someone speak in such a polarizing, funny way.”

ZachH Zucker (Also known as Jack Tucker)

I was an unusual 19-year-old student working at the UCB Theater in Los Angeles. My boss was working at Sacha Baron Cohen’s company and he told me there was a place for interns there, and by the way, Sasha’s clown teacher was coming to Los Angeles. I went to this workshop and I had never seen someone talk to people in such a polarizing, funny way. I got a job with Sasha, and after six months, I told him I wanted to go to Jolier. Sasha said: “Go!”

I was only supposed to go for six months, but three weeks later, I saw my fellow sophomores doing a theater scene that blew my mind. I signed up for two full years that night. My company, Stamptown, is named after Étampes, where the clown school is based, and our logo is the castle from the city.

People’s stories tend to go something like this: “Philip told me I was terrible and it was so embarrassing.” But first and foremost, the man was a clown. He loved to laugh more than anything else.

“You didn’t back down.”

Emily Woof

I liked some of the other things he taught, especially melodrama and buffon. When doing melodrama, we used to do this exercise where you sit at a table, drink a glass of wine in a stew of melancholy. There will be music playing. Then she suddenly hits the table, looks at the gods and says, “Not that music!”

In melodrama, he wanted you to play gods, poor people who couldn’t afford other seats in the theater. It was about unleashing generosity of spirit, and it didn’t stop. You had a lift in the head and in the voice. His way of playing was generous and embodied. It was real discipline. If you don’t hit him, you won’t be able to get away with him because he’s too crazy, too big. You had to be completely honest.

Buffon is almost the opposite of a clown: you are an outsider who comes to mock the bourgeoisie. You are the one who has the upper hand. I came to theater with an edge and I’ve taken that advantage into my own work. In clowning she loves the audience, but Buffon’s is a more twisted form.

“Slowly, I realized how to deal with the public.”

Hamish McCall

The word everyone feared was “suivant“(Next) which really means ‘get down.’ You’ll go up and open your mouth and get ‘suivant“. You will come out confused. “What did you do? I just opened my mouth!” Slowly, I realized what it was, how to interact with the audience at that moment.

As a director, you are always looking for the action to be present, real, lively and dynamic. His short threshold for things not working — and he was tyrannical — stayed with me. “In order to anger the public“It makes the audience laugh,” he would say. “Are they engaged? Are they with you? If they aren’t.”suivant!

“It’s about what’s happening in that moment.”

Cal McChrystal

He told you not to bring ideas with you because that was like filling your arms with suitcases. When you walk in, you see this amazing bag on the floor but you can’t pick it up because your arms are full. The performance should be about what is happening in that moment.

My whole career goes back to Philip. Even when I work at English National Opera, I say: “This feeling of joy and mischief and connection with the audience is not a layer that you put on top of the show: it is the show.”

Philip once said that you should come and entertain your four-year-old son who thinks it’s a good idea to come down the stairs naked when you have guests. The child who does not know why it is wrong but really wants to do it: that is mischief.