Down but not out in Paris and London

OK, Ok. OK. Ahh...

2008-04-17T13:45:00.000-07:00

Ok, so recently I have mostly felt the impulse to write this blog when I have been in complete turmoil: i moan about my boring problems, my mum gets worried that i'm about to throw myself off the Eiffel tower, and there is general self-pitying going about. So here it is: OK? Ok: I feel quite good.

GASP

I know, I actually feel quite good about myself, on the stage, and I fucking love Philippe Gaullier. I think (touch wood - I remember i have written this before) I think I am the other side of the Gaullier tunnel.

I first felt the change when we came back to school after Easter: The three months between Christmas and Easter were hell - a big grimy tunnel of self-doubt and Gaullier truisms - but after a three-week break I returned and felt something had changed. Yes, I have flopped since returning, but I feel a certain 'lightness' that I didn't feel before. And I think I have connected with my 'pleasure and beauty' - These are the Pillars of Gaullism, so if I can hang on to them I will be doing well.

Today we did an improvisation - a socialist meeting - and it was good, Philippe said I was good (well, he said 'OK' but i'll take that) And then he announced "Bon, so loo-loo break. Fifteen minutes. When you come back, you come back as someone else's character" Hazzar! What larks Pip, what a fantastic weeze! We all went to the dressing rooms and frantically swapped our costumes. The results were astonishing - so funny. Everyone returned and tried to imitate their person 'doing' their character. Paul entered as Yuichi's bloodthirsty lesbian character, Adrien entered as Nelly's militant synchronised-swimmer character, It was hilarious to see the behaviours of actors imitated. I swapped characters with Susana - hers is a 'Pirha' a kind of Spanish socialite - leopard-print dress, red shoes and red wig - and I had so much fun! The freedom to play with someone else's behaviour is unbelievable. Before I went on I thought 'I can't really be Susana and talk in English, but I can't speak Spanish, except for a few swear words.' So I entered like Su and talked in a breezy tirade of Spanishy gobledeggok with the occassional 'Iho di Poutta' (son of a bitch) or 'Yo tengo muchos cohones' (I have big balls.) I managed to continue for some while and Philippe asked me questions. At the end of the class Philippe asked us 'bon, who will we remember?' 'Paul...Tamara...Adrien...Tiff...' we enthused. And then Philippe said 'Stiff, ah but Stiff was fucking good' and then he whistled like Woof! Fucking good.

I remember this feeling of freedom and fun when Philippe asked me to imitate Anton a couple of months ago, and I think eventually this is how you have to feel with every character. Imitating another is liberating to me because you feel like the 'you' has been taken out of the equation (we think... because we are imitating someone else) but really this feeling is simply the absolute enjoyment of your pleasure -your pleasure to be an actor on the stage, your pleasure to be alive, and your pleasure as an actor to make your character dance.

Tomorrow is the last day of the 'characters' workshop and Philippe ended today's class by saying 'Bon, tomorrow perhaps, we will do something interesting'.... The mind reels, all I know is: I cannot wait.

Character

2008-04-06T11:39:00.000-07:00

Well, its the end of my first week back at l'ecole after Easter and i find myself very aware of the fact that there are only three months left. Philippe has successfully deconstructed my approach to acting, and now only three months remain for me to re-build them with him... Hmmm. Could it be that I will finish and still be in quandry? Perhaps it will take years...Perhaps the epiphany will arrive to me in thirty years time when i'm teaching English in an inner-London comprehensive. Who knows?

It is getting harder and harder to write this blog - my thoughts are so scrambled at the moment, it's daunting the thought of trying to extract them and communicate them in any tangible or coherent way. But i'll try...

So this workshop is characters - we have total freedom to create characters and work on them with Philippe. So far, it is a great deal of fun - I have laughed more this week than almost any other. After finishing last term in total crisis, I tried to spend the holidays not thinking too much about school - after all the main paradox of the school is that Philippe crams your head with so many things to think about / to do / not to do- but the only way to be successful on stage is to be relaxed and open and not actively thinking about any of these things - so I thought I would just relax, and hope that on some level of my brain there were ideas unconsciously permeating... The first two days back at school were awesome - I was good and open, and I felt like I was being the kind of actor Philippe likes. FUCK, I thought, it's working! I am out of the tunnel and everything is easy and open and free - hurrah! My character is a geeky young girl called Carol - i'll upload a picture for your amusement, and for the first day we did a cabaret. I entered nervously and sang 'Wuthering Heights' by Kate Bush - it was really fun, and I felt very open to the audience - I started tentatively and only moved more when I felt they were ready.

Then came the third day and I was boring again. I was worried that I was playing the stereotype of my character too much - Philippe always says how you must never underline your character (I remember back to Neutral mask where your body had to contrast with your voice - if you say one thing with your body and then say the same thing with your voice, there is no space for the audience to dream: underlining) He also says when you enter, the audience will have an idea of what you can be, and if you manage to exceed that idea, and surprise the audience with where you take your character then you will be amazing. So I tried to be more subtle, and it wasn't enough. I was speaking to Lib, a lovely Canadian who teaches back home and has a lot of experience with Philippe and his school of thought. I explained that I didn't want to underline and just do the expected. 'Yes' she said 'but if you enter with your character AND the idea that you don't want to underline, then you are entering with a shitty little idea' (Philippe's phrase for when you bring your own ideas to the stage instead of finding them through your pleasure with the audience.) So the next day, I decided not to reign in my character - and of course it was too much - I pushed my idea. So where I am at now is trying to find the middle way between doing too much and doing too little. Balls.

Oh god this is so boring - so instead I will write a transcript of one of last week's exercises:

Monsieur Le Prof: Bon, so we make an office - a table and some chairs - and you enter one by one, your character is arriving at work in the morning. When I do this (taps the drum) the next one enters.

Me: Carrol (geeky awkward young girl)
Adrian: Gunther (Gangly Rambler from Germany)
Lia: Big Tony (Jamaican lover lover man)

(Adrian enters first, he looks awkwardly around the room, then returns to the wings and takes the vase of flowers back onto the stage. Philippe taps the drum and I enter)

Me: Hello
Adrian: Uh, hello (lots of awkward geekyness)
Me: Oh NO! What are they doing there? (I pick up the flowers and take them off stage) You know we're not supposed to
have flowers, Tony said never have...
(at this point Adrian interrupts me and says:)
Adrian: Yes but Tony is dead!
(I have to pretend to cry to hide my laughing, then Tony enters)
Lia: I'm not dead chillun. Big TOny's back

BANG! Ha ha ha

Oh bollocks

2008-03-05T10:25:00.000-08:00

I hereby retract any positive and/or nice thing I wrote yesterday. I am a boring person and do not deserve to be on the stage. and I hate it. and I want to go home.

Ah bon

2008-03-04T11:54:00.001-08:00

Bon, alors. il y a quelque jours, j'ai dit a mon copain Adrian que la prochaine fois que j'ecrivera mon blog, j'ecriverais en francais. (et sans utilisant le traduisseur google) Cepandant, beaucoup de temps a passe (ah, et aussi je ne sais pas comment ecriver les lettres avec accents...) depuis la dernier blog et je pense malheureusement que j'ai trop a dire pour l'expliquer en francais. En regrette Adrian, si tu lis ceci, mais la prochaine fois sera en francais, je te promette.

Great, well you can see my french hasn't improved.

I'm not sure my acting has either.

Well, i'm getting somewhere - my weaknesses are certainly clearer.

So, I last wrote about bouffon. Bouffon was difficult. Really difficult. After that was melodrama, which retrospectively was really great, but at the time I was languishing in the Gaullier tunnel. Voila Philippe's method: to put you in the shit (to frustrate every artistic impulse and confidence you ever had) and then watch you crawl your way out.

From the beginning of melodrama I had a decent grasp on what Philippe wanted, but I kept realising it was not enough. Philippe would say to me after an exercise "Ah, well this is fine for English melodrama, but not here. Here, you need to give more" Give more! Give more! I kept saying to myself, "I must push myself beyond my comfort zone and into the unknown" But I wouldn't. Perhaps I succeeded a little towards the end of the course, but on the last day Philippe said something very interesting to me. He said "Tiff, she is almost there non? But everytime, you build something beautiful, but everytime, at the last minute, you escape." Eh voila: full-blown crisis. I do not trust myself enough to follow my impulses. And why? Why? Because I don't like myself very much, and I fear always that other people feel the same way. On the stage is the only place in my life where I have some control over how other people feel about me, and Philippe asking me to alter this is terrifying! I feel like this is such a fragile world, that if I try to modify it, it could break, and then where would I be? Sans plaisir, sans happiness, sans love.

So, last week we started 'mask play.' First we started with the unformed masks "larvae masks" from the Bale festival in Switzerland. They were beautiful, but very difficult to work in because you can see and hear very little. Suddenly, all the work Philippe has developed with us on complicite and openness and feeling the space dissappeared out the window - you could barely hear your fellow actors on the stage, let alone follow the audience or the space.(By the way, you can barely breathe either, one girl even passed out!) Later we worked with the masks of Commedia del Arte. I tried one day to do el Capitaine, and Philippe began to work with me. "Make a noise like a washing machine." I did "and now a motorbike" ditto "and now an airplane. Now choose someone here you want to do crack-crack-boom-boom with" I chose Yuichi, and I had to approach him like I was trying to seduce him, except Philipe would sporadically bark out "washing machine!..."Motorbike" and i obeyed by interupting my seduction with these strange noises. Everyone enjoyed this performance, and I suppose I was 'OK,' but when it was over I lay down on the floor and felt really boring. I mean REALLY boring - more boring than I have ever felt in my life. I suddenly realised that all my life I have been fooling myself into thinking i'm not just a boring bastard who should be working in a pharmacy. My brain replayed every moment in my life where I have felt dull and unadmired by people around me! Philippe had given me all these beautiful impulses, and I could not find one shred of imagination to bring them to life! and I cried. I cried. A lot. The class finished, and Susanna came to me, and I sobbed - like a toddler who can't find their breath. I felt my whole life crumbling around my ears. Eventually I calmed down enough to walk to the dressing room, when who should I run into? Bah Philippe of course! C'est comme ca la vie, n'est-ce pas? "Ah Cherie, you have been crying?" "yes" "ah, bah why?" I feel the sob rising up within me "Be...be...bec...because I think i'm boring! AGGGGHHHH" I wailed. Right into the face of world-renowned Philippe Gaullier. What a prick. He said "bah non" but then I was kindly ushered to the dressing room by Yuichi and Susanna. On the train back to Paris, a lovely girl from class called Lucianna said to me "you were beautiful today" HA! I responded (by this time, I was feeling pretty boringly sorry for myself) "Yes, because Philippe was shouting all these orders at you and we saw you only concentrating on doing what he told you - it was beautiful because you were thinking only of this, and nothing else." Ah - claro claro - I was not questioning my impulses and trying to invent shitty ideas - just responding to impulses.

Then I drank a lot of wine with Susanna and I felt better.

The next day Philippe walks into class, and before we did anything else he asked "who is in crisis here?" (most people raised their hands) and he gave the most reassuring and beautiful speech about how good it is to be in crisis, and he looked all the time at me. And i felt warm down to the cockles, Philippe seems so harsh and disinterested sometimes, but he cares. He really cares about all his students. I love him for this.

So, where was I at the beginning of this week? Bon: I need to be open on stage, and not be afraid to expose myself to the audience, I need to enjoy being myself, I need to trust myself, I need to listen to my impulses, I need to not bring my shitty ideas to the stage but rather come first with my pleasure, be open and listen to the audience.

This weekend we had to make our own masks. I made three, and today I tried out number two. Philippe asked us to come to a cafe cabaret - which means one by one we have to walk onto the stage as the cabaret act and sing a song for the audience. I entered slowly, trying to enter to the stage without ideas of the mask (Philippe's rule of mask number 1: the audience does not like it when you enter to the stage and behave like you know the mask better than the audience - they want to discover the mask with you) and trying to show the mask (Philippe's rule of mask number 2: whatever you do on the stage, it must be to show the mask). I began to sing "I feel pretty" from West Side Story. It went ok: 'I feel pretty / oh so pretty / I feel pretty and witty and bright/ and I pity any girl who isn't me tonight' At this moment I sang 'la la la la la la la la la la' and everyone laughed. I didn't realise beforehand, but deciding to sing this song was a shitty little idea that I brought to the stage. Singing the 'la la la' in the middle I did not plan, and because it was an impulse that arrived between me and the audience and I followed it - it worked. God, it's so simple. But ask me to do it again, and I couldn't. BUT IT'S SO OBVIOUS! JUST EXIST WITH YOUR PLEASURE AND THE AUDIENCE ON STAGE!! The second verse starts to flop "ah, we liked you better before!" cries Philippe before and I try to react "la la la la la" but it has become a shitty idea, no longer an impulse. Philippe stopped me and tried to work with me - he told me to speak with a stutter, and like I had a hot potato in my mouth. it didn't work, and Philippe said "Bon, the mask is good (we are collecting all the good masks together for everyone to use) The mask is good. The actor, not so good" Ouch, this one really hurt: I return to my place to consider my considerable boringness and Philippe starts talking about something else. "Who is the biggest idiot in the class? A Man?" Philippe calls over to me 'Ah...' I giggle "If you have to choose, who is the biggest idiot?" I reply that I think it's probably Anton, and Philippe says, "bon, with the mask again, imitate Anton." I get up and it is hilarious. I have great pleasure, the audience too and even Philippe is laughing. "If you continue to play your little characters, you will play all your life in blah blah blah English theatre, but if you can find this pleasure to deconner (fuck about) you will be fantastic."

I've been trying to understand this - because I WAS playing a character: the character of Anton. But Philippe was asking me questions - and I purely found pleasure in responding to him imitating Anton. Every moment I was thinking not 'I have a plan / I have a character' I was thinking 'Ah, I'm excited to show you what I will do next - where I can take this Anton.' This is exactly what Philippe talks about - the actor must always be saying "ah, watch out Macbeth, for I am coming for you. You are great, but I am better! And every moment I will surprise everyone by showing them where I will take my pleasure in showing them the way of Macbeth / the mask."

Today was Philippe's birthday and we gave him a cake and sang 'Happy Birthday.' It was lovely and he is lovely. And maybe I will be lovely too.

Jusqu'a la prochaine fois - en francais je vous promette

HA HA!

2008-01-31T11:41:00.000-08:00

I found the Bouffon! Sort of. I think. Aithur says its best not to think too much about this, so I won't. All I know is I have had a lot of fun in class today and yesterday.

On monday I saw something beautiful in Alvin, and believed that the idiot-bouffon was being superseded by the real Bouffon. On Tuesday my head literally exploded and I couldn't think or speak until the next day. On Wednesday I was vulgar and I loved it. Today I actually loved being a Bouffon.

Philippe worked with me on Wednesday and it was great - he told me that the audience loves me when I am vulgar and strong. On reflection, i know this to be true. If the bouffon is the part of you that loves to be naughty and blaspheme, then my bouffon lies in vulgarity - I love to be naughty in this way.

Tomorrow is the last day of Bouffon so I will try and conclude all these twines of thought post-mortem.

Why are the things that are most worth getting always most difficult to get?!

2008-01-23T12:42:00.000-08:00

I should have known from Greek Tragedy that if I really liked something, it was bound to be difficult to achieve. Bouffon is really, really, really, really, really, really difficult. Everytime I think I have understood it and have pinned it down in my head - it changes!

The problem is, I don't think you can specify exactly what the bouffon is - the parameters are totally shifting, and really as a bouffon, you can do or be anything. This is great, I mean, great, but for people trying to learn it is fucking difficult.

I must find pleasure. This is the key to all of Philippe's teaching: find your pleasure. Artur said today "if you have pleasure, you must share it with the audience." he also said to me "you are a bouffon, for sure. So don't worry about it too much." HA! Fat chance. I am English and a born worrier. How to portray all these things at the same time: your bouffon (which is the part of you who finds pleasure to blaspheme), your bouffon performing for the crowd, (always aware that he is walking the dangerous ground) playing with your chorus of bouffon friends AND the parodies on top of that! I feel people are attempting to show pleasure by gurning and gallolloping around like idiots on the stage; but the bouffon is NOT an idiot. At all. He is very shrewd and subtle. Basically, dear reader, I am thinking about this all too much. Stop thinking, just do.

Yesterday I had my first major success in Philippe's Bouffon workshop. Those of us who had learnt the 'Adam & Eve' bouffon text were asked to walk in our couples on the stage, taking pleasure to walk like a rich couple on a Sunday afternoon out on Hampstead Heath. Paul and I walked, Philippe asked us to speak our text, Paul spoke, I spoke, Philippe banged the drum "What are you doing? You speak too much. No pleasure. you speak too fast. not enough" we walked on and the next couples made their attempts.(No-one getting further than four lines) What happened then was that because I thought that was it for us - our turn had failed and was over - Paul and I started having real fun in taking the piss out of this couple. We were poncing around saying hello to the other couples, enjoying our complicite and the game we were playing together. We were having pleasure to blaspheme, and it was genuine pleasure. Philippe (being the clever man he is) saw this and called our names again. Well, we got through the whole text and it was great! At the end Philippe put everyone else in the bin, but he saved us and said "it was good, we love you. What happened? If i went to the theatre with my wife, I could turn to her now and say 'ah, they were good'. What happened?" It is so clear in my head that it worked because Paul and I had a really great pleasure together in this game we had created of parodying these snobby bastards. This is the pleasure: Your pleasure to be onstage, combined with complicite and the joy of playing a game. But when you don't have this, it is impossible to recreate. Well, I suspect this is one of the objectives of the school - to learn how to find this more confidently.

There is so much more to write, but I think this is all I can formulate into (vaguely coherent) sentences for now.

This is me and my friend Alvin as our bouffons.

Viva la Bouffon!

2008-01-10T09:52:00.000-08:00

So yes, I only wrote one entry for the module on Greek Tragedy, slappeth my wrists Horatio. I do have the excuse that I was moving house during this time - no more the lonely room in the house of bonkers old milky-eyed madam - now I am living in a great flat with my beautiful classmate Susana. The flat is in Place de Clichy, and is a typical Parisian square of flats around a little courtyard. Walking through to my building and up the stairs to my door is like being in a Jeunet et Caro film: it is delicious.

Greek Tragedy happened. Philippe told us to be tall and always accept the fate of the gods proudly on our heads. I got to use my 'RSC voice' (Philippe's words, not mine) and we got to work in detail on duologues. We also had another great teacher Christine Landon-Smith who was a great contrast to Philippe - as she would work with you and explain her pedagogy as she went. I thought Greek Tragedy was pretty great. Then, we started Bouffon.

It's brilliant. It's such a release after Greek Tragedy. Concentrate girls, here comes the history:

In the middle ages the children of God (the church, the rich, beautiful, successful people of society) decided that there were certain people who ruined their pleasant landscape, such as the dwarves, the legless, the blacks, the gays, the hunchbacks; the children of God decided to banish these people to the swamps and the forests because they were unpleasant, putting bells around their necks so that they would always know if they were approaching the beautiful kingdom of the children of God. They pointed the finger of scorn at these miscreants and told them they were children of Satan. The 'others' marched off to the swamp and became the Bouffons. But then arrived the Great Plague, and the children of God were afraid. They decided (in their wisdom) to allow the Bouffons to march through the town for one night, because they thought the Bouffons were disgusting enough to scare even the Plague. So they marched through the town and found great pleasure in their role as the children of Satan. The Bouffon learnt to parody the bastards amongst the children of God and learnt very precisely how to parody them to their faces so that the bastards would be laughing and laughing and laughing, but then Oh No! He is talking about ME! I am a bastard! and he either dies of a heart attack or goes home and kills himself.

This is the art of the Bouffon: to parody those who pointed the finger of scorn, those who condemned the Bouffons to the swamp (for swamp, you can read Ghetto, concentration camp...) and to illustrate that the 'children of God' can be disgusting, bastard sons of Satan.

The Bouffon is not a clown, because the Bouffon is very clever. He walks always on dangerous ground,(and relishes this) because if he is too obvious in his parodies of the bastards then the bastard sons of God will just shoot him. The clown is idiot and just wants to be loved by the audience, the bouffon wants to kill the bastard with his performance.

This week Philippe has been showing us some of the different Bouffons: the dwarf, the hunchback, the fat-stomached. He ties us up in clothes to deform our bodies, and blackens our faces and teeth. Then we started to parody - yesterday we looked at the priest and today I parodied a paedophile teacher - it is so much fun, and not so far from my comfort zone as I had imagined. It is enormously pleasurable - and this is key, because the Bouffon enjoys being a Bouffon. When the bastard points the finger and says "Urgh! You are a poof! A Bender!" the accussed man can either say "oh no! Child of God! I am one of you, let me be gay but be counted amongst the children of God" or, he can say "poof eh? Bender eh? Interesting. Yes, I probably am. I will join those in the swamp and laugh at what a stupid bastard you really are. Ha ha! And one day I will hold the mirror of truth so close to your ugly face that you will want to kill yourself when you realise your own ugliness!"

Ha ha! I love it!

This week we have to find our inner Bouffon - a Bouffon we enjoy playing, maybe the gay, the hunchback or the dwarf. Then , over the weekend we have to find three bastards to parody. I, as yet, have no answers for these tasks. One thing is for sure, this business is complicated - to be the actor, playing the bouffon, parodying the bastard, but subtly - There are so many layers! And we are satirising religion and society at the same as time as flailing around as a funny dwarf. It is complicated, and I feel the weight of a great tradition bearing down on me.

We have a new Improvisation teacher called Aithur, he works with a company in England called Spymonkey. He did an exercise with us today to help us find our pleasure to mock and be nasty. We were put in pairs, then one person had to insult the other - the more personal the better - and then the mocked had to parody the insulter. I was with Alvin, a lovely actor from Singapore who I really love, and the prospect of insulting him and being mean was just horrible, but, I thought, it is an exercise and it is valuable experience. I insulted his trousers, his hair and his glasses (all the while deep inside, feeling terrible) and then he, the lucky bastard, insulted me in Mandarin! I don't know what he said! HA! Having said that, it was great fodder for me, because when I came to parody him, I got to be the angry Chinese man- speaking nonsense Mandarin and gesturing a lot. It's all just good complicated fun.

2007-11-26T11:57:00.000-08:00

Bon. Voila la tragedie Grecque:

I give you now a rule for tragedie Grecque and for all theatre: tragedy, comedy, bon.

The stage is a tray, balancing on the centre point. Someone enters, they go to the centre and the stage is balanced. Bon. Someone else enters, they explore the new environment and the inhabitants must balance them. More and more enter and we have chorus and individual exploring, etc etc, bon. It is exactly the same problem with immigration eh? Bon

Now, we sit round the walls of the room. STUDENTS! You must move the benches as your professeur has asked you - around ze walls of ze room! Allez. Bon.

(we move the benches to create an amphithetre and Philippe finds a track on his ipod - it is a recording of a very famous French man talking about the german occupation of Paris: he speaks beautifully, full of rhetoric and emotion)

Bon, so we take six students - you walk in ze space, proud, like with the neutral mask, and when I call your name, you speak the text ("the death of Hector" from Homer's 'Illiad') But with voice of actor, not "neurgh neurgh nah nah" Bon.

You all sit down immediately. Thank you for this horrible group.

(this is a compliment - at least most of us got to the end of the first sentence, one girl only got two words before BANG!)

Bon, now you sit down here - the horrible little table please! and a chair! and a glass!

Bon, so (A student sits in the chair awaiting instruction - for we the spectators it is like watching a good friend walking slowly to the gallows) So, you speak again about the death of Hektor - but now, you were his friend, and today is the anniversary of his death: every year you come and drink two, three glasses and remember him. There is a girl here in the cafe who you want to go to bed with. Who?...Bon, so you look at Susanna now and then like you want to go to bed with her. Attention...

(He gets to line four)

BANG! Stop! But he is communist no? There was no warmth about your dead friend, it was like you speak to the communist party. Thank you. Alors, Who?

(fuck it, I think, no girls have had a go yet - i learnt the text over the weekend - it's now or never...I stare into my wine glass and think about lovely Hektor and how he died in battle; I try to use the stylistic 'RSC' voice he has requested of me for Greek Tragedy...I get to the penultimate line! It has worked! Wow!)

Bon, next we do another exercise. I need a woman, not total idiot. Ah... (he looks at me - Shit!) Madame Stiff (I get up) She is l'alcoolique, but when she is not full of wine, she is quite intelligent. Bon, remove the table. So, place your leg up on the chair like a seducer (I do, and feel vulnerable, my eyes roll ceilingward and people laugh) You know Mae West, she said, I don't know how it is in English 'you are pleased to see me or is that a gun in your pocket?' Bon, so you say that in the style of Mae West. Attention:

('Is that a gun in your pocket? Or are you just pleased to see me? I say all seductive, husky and slow)

Bon, so now you say the text like this:

(I speak the text: it was wonderful, and fun, and I had the spectators, and Gaullier let me finish the whole text!)

It's much more interesting like ziz non?

(I have to inform you of one piece of information, dear reader, Gaullier always says to students after they have been bad 'you get a zero' sometimes 'a double zero' - but never has the figure been ANYTHING else but ZERO)

Bon madame Stiff. You get a seven.

(Everyone 'oohs')

Oh, happiness is a cigar called Gaullier

The Neutral Mask reaches its end

2007-11-22T10:08:00.000-08:00

This was the best pineapple I had ever eaten. Juicy, sharp but sweet, fully cored by the ever-so-friendly greengrocer in Sceaux. All that remains now is the core and the base, which look like a toddler's sword.

Yesterday, for the first time, I was bored in class. GASP! QUEL HORREUR?! BAH NON! Bah oui mes petits amis, je me suis ennui. I was frustrated because for the whole week we had been 'doing' animals: from Penguin to chicken, from tortoise to crocodile, and I was BORED. Philippe just read out a list of animals and we had three minutes to search for/discover/explore/challenge this animal rhythm and from it find a character - only to be told "ah, not so bad" or "totally boring, sit down immediately." It's not enough! Well, I thought, this is not teaching - my niece Abi could be shouting out animals for me to imitate. It's just not enough! Philippe your methods are tired! Where is the expoloration? But oh! Philippe is so clever. He was trying to grind us towards crisis: I fretted all night with my anger and decided the best way to combat the situation was to think 'maybe it's me' and to try and attack the class today, (i'm trying a new mantra - it's something about acting positively, don't ask) to just throw myself into whatever we were doing, so that even if what I did was rubbish, it wouldn't be boring - clearly these thoughts had been provoked in my fellow classmates: the energy in the class today was amazing.

Today Philippe asked us to explore colours from behind the neutral mask: What is Blue? How is Purple? Philippe also wanted to explore which languages of the classroom had the best words for each colour. So, as a group in neutral mask were 'doing' blue, the spectators would call out their respective word for blue to see which matched the rhythm of the masks. 'Bleu' said the Frenchman, 'Azoras' said the Portuguese and we would discuss which word fitted best the colour. Blue is without doubt the portugese 'Azul', yellow is best in italian: 'giallo,' and 'red' we decided was best in English.

Then we formed opposing choruses (please advise on latin conjugation - chorae?) of colour. We played red versus blue, brown against orange, it was fascinating to see the contrast of the different colour rhythms and how the rhythms could be altered yet maintained to communicate a given task. Philippe finished the class ten minutes early, he said we were beautiful. "I don't want to do more now. It is best to leave with this beauty in our heads. If the others go now it might be shitty and I don't want that in my head." Ah, when you speak like zis Phil, I am week in ze nees...

2007-11-18T04:24:00.000-08:00

Wow. What a week it has been: This week we continued to play with being different elements and substances through the neutral mask. In the last ten days I have been: Glue, oil (trucker), oil (boiling chip fat), vinegar, hydrochloric acid, glass, steel, elastic, paper, silk and a tree. To say it has been tiring would be an understatement.

Oftentimes Philippe will take you through a microcosm of creation in minutes (no slow exploration in this school) - you start as the element in neutral mask, and if he feels you are grasping the element well he will remove the mask, if you are still coping, he will command you to speak text, and then, if you are finding character from the element he will ask you to do a cabaret number (a song, speech) as that character. One of my favourite elements to expore was Oil - the thick black oil from a trucker's engine: it is thick and slow and lazy but it also has deep impulses which radiate from the centre out to all its volume. It was delicious. With Oil, I found a nice character - she was slumped and perhaps a little retarted, and she sang "I feel pretty" from West Side Story with a very lazy mouth. Everyone laughed and Philippe said afterwards "Bon, so we love your humour."

Vinegar I found very difficult - it is a light fluid, but also acidic - but the next rung on the ladder was Hydrochloric acid, which was madly exciting: It is frantic and thrives on consumption and destruction, so we had a lot of wild movement and energy. Philippe explained that the energy of Hydrochloric acid is an excellent one for Bouffon. When he had a group of good Hydrochlorics he asked them to move upstage whilst looking at the audience and laughing - the energy of all these maniac laughters was like watching a pack of hyena or cackling witches - it was lovely. Philippe then commanded that the group act as chorus and choryphae (the chorus leader who speaks a text, and commands the others) It was a wonderful insight into the menacing joy of the bouffon.

On Friday morning we were doing yoga in our morning movement class with our wonderful new teacher Juan. Juan is a graduate (and favourite) of the school and he has been trying to prepare our voices and bodies for Greek Tragedy which will be our demanding next module. We have been aclimatising ourselves to speaking at full pitch whilst running and jumping and moving etc, in order to strengthen our vocal resevoir. It was a great pleasure for me to move away from the ridiculous handstands and cartwheels and back to lovely voicework, and I trust Juan immensely. He is very passionate about his craft and takes time to work with individual needs. Towards the end of the class, I pulled a muscle in my neck: it didn't feel like a regular pulled muscle, it felt more as if I had 'pulled a bone.' It wasn't that painful, but I just started crying. I couldn't control it - I tried, but each time I managed to stop the tears, they began to well up again. It was bizarre. The pain ran from the base of my skull at the back of my neck, down through the centre of my throat to my voice box. Juan spent twenty minutes after the class stretching out the vertabrae in my neck, trying to shake the tension from the muscles out through my arms and legs - but still the shooting pain was there. I tried to show him where the pain was in my neck and he said "have you ever had an infection?" "Yes," I said "three years ago, and I worked through it and did great damage to my voice." He could feel the emotional block still in the glands of my throat. "If you have a friend here, you should go and cry for maybe two hours - but you must get it out." Bloody hell, I thought, how peculiar and amazing that the body should hold a physical memory of emotion like that. When I damaged my voice in 2004, it was the most terrifying period of my career, and I have carried that emotion around with me in my throat: since then I have thought about protecting my voice continuously and also taken great pains to conceal my worries by rolling them into a tight little ball somewhere between my throat and my sternum. And it's still there! It has grown strong! It is a knotted cyst of tears! Hopefully this is the beginning of my recovery. I think for most people their crisis will come in Philippe's class with how to be beautiful on stage, but for me it is the opposite (and, lest I forget, the reason I came to Paris) I have encountered my first crisis in the body that stands between me and complete expressive liberty. Sorry mummy, but 'fucking hell;' what a week.

Our homework this weekend was to find an animal and study it, to present on monday to the class. Yesterday I went to the Paris zoo to commune with the animals. Firstly, because of the strikes here it took about three hours to get there, which was a pain, and then when we arrived it was pretty depressing - poor conditions for the animals, and it has been so cold in Paris this week that all the creatures seemed really sad. Anyway, I managed to find great affinity with a group of little penguins. They are so fool-hardy and cocky, but really very silly and ungainly. i love them! So for the rest of the day I will be waddling around my little room trying to connect with my inner penguin. Last night I went to the Marais, and I have decided that this is definately my favourite area of Paris. Oh the tiny bookshop/bars and windy streets and even (Lo and behold!) vegetarian bistros! It is beautiful there and it feels like my ideal of Paris that I have carried around for so long.

Bienvenue Guillaume

2007-11-08T08:44:00.000-08:00

This has been my face for the last two weeks. I have been 'sans internet' as we say in France, because the inconsiderate prick from whom I had been stealing free internet "Guillaume," went away. Well, hail Caesar, the prodigal son has returned: so here we are.

First a quick recap to get you up to speed: I watched the final of the Rugby World Cup under the Eiffel Tower, drinking a can of beer with about a million other English people - It was horrible, I like neither large numbers of people, Sports, or the English - but the atmosphere was amazing, and the Eiffel tower was lit up beautifully like a christmas tree. The next day I met up with Adam Brace - a friend from home - and I realised how difficult it is to all the time be a stranger, how simply wonderful it was to sit with someone who I knew, and with whom I didn't have to justify myself moment by moment. We finsihed the first module at school last week, some people went home which was sad, some people are still here... And last weekend I went home to London. Ah! What bliss! I saw Ben for two whole days, my lovely parents came up for Sunday Lunch and then I got back to Paris in time for class on Monday and was completely exhausted. Right, boring catch up over.

This week at school has seen the beginning of the second workshop "neutral mask" or in french "neutre masque" - someone phone Berlitz, i'm teaching new insights here. I was really looking forward to neutral mask; "Le Jeu" had been great fun, but it was an introduction to the game of theatre - i didn't feel like it really had me confronting my bad habits and/or weaknesses; entrez le masque. It excited me and terrified me - for the first few days I found it quite difficult to volunteer to go up - I felt like the art of moving behind a mask was one totally alien to me, and I wanted to understand it a little before I waded in. NON TIFFANY! ZERE YOU GO AGAIN: ZINKING FIRST, ZEN ACTING. STOP INTELLECTUALIZING! ZIZ IS WHY YOU ARE IN PARIS! Of course, Gaullier's school is not the place where you slowly learn and study your craft, before honing it infront of an audience. Non: ere, you just get on and do it, and you'll be killed time after boring time until one day Gaullier says "not so bad."

This week we have to find our element. That's right. Our element. Yesterday we explored water, both the still water of a mountain lake, and also the babbling clear water from a spring. Gaullier said I was "not so bad," but that I 'draw' too much - I think he meant that I was trying to portray too much, instead of just being ( I think it comes from the old ballet training, too much shape in the wrists/ankles) He took to refering to me as "the picasso/matisse of the class" which, as Gaullier insults go, left my classmates reeling. Today we had to be fire. Now, I know what some of you are thinking, "Tiff, you are literally the last person I know (apart maybe from the aforementioned Adam Brace / Richard Hurst) to embrace an exercise where your instruction was simply to move as fire...Wouldn't you raise an eyebrow? Dissappear for a cigarette? Mumble something about T S Eliot whilst raising a sarcastic eyebrow?" Yes, but this is WHY i'm here. It was today at 2.13, in a small rehersal room in Sceaux that my inbuilt cynicism started having heart palpitations. My little kitten of cynicism I had nurtured so carefully for twenty-six years: "What the hell are you doing? You're getting up first? You're actually volunteering to go and flail about like some modern interpretive dance act imitating fire? You twat." But I did anyway. "Madame Stiff" (the most enduring epithet, sometimes followed with 'Rosbif' "Ha Ha! Stiff le Rosbif, it's a joke! I like it! BANG!") "Madame Stiff, not so bad. But you use too much your arms - the rest of your body is dead"

My cynicism is laughing now, like a drain, or like Gaullier after he has thought up a joke in situ. "HA HA HA" it says "I fucking told you, throwing yourself about like that, what a twat." But do you know what I did? I did it again. I got up and did it again, and this time I was determined to feel the fire throughout my body. ( I am telling this charming story of me vs my cynicism as if there is to be a triumphant victory of innocence and spirit over cynicism, for any of you out there of a sensitive disposition who are praying nightly for this redemption of my spirit (mummy) - so that the dissappointment not be too overwhelming, i must tell you now this is not the case) I went for it! I was out of control! When he banged his drum (during an exercise it means you must speak text) "The Raven itself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements" Oh I felt like I was on fire. I spoke, and it was like the demons were eating Lady Macbeth from the inside - out. Ooh yeah! This is what it's all about! I am an actor! And then I realised that I had become totally lightheaded and couldn't really understand where I was on the planet, let alone in the room. So i had to lie down very still, and slowly drink some water, while the little voices in my head were quietly gloating.

No-one in class knew of my funny turn. I probably looked like a really pretentious wanker, who felt they had 'spent' themselves to such an incredible extent they needed to rest while the muse left them. Really it made me feel like a whirling dervish, and it made me realise how it is possible to work oneself into quite an extra-physical experience. I couldn't help thinking of churches out near the Mississippi. HA! I voluntarilly wrote the word Mississippi! I wonder if I know how to spell it. Any ammendments gratefully received. A plus tard mes amis, we've still got water and earth to come...

The big guns arrive

2007-10-16T12:01:00.000-07:00

I have a cold. I am full of cold. Totally chilly. I blame it on the Spaniard from Madrid who I would call Jose as a pseudonym, except that Jose is his real name, so i'll call him Ted. I think in many ways feeling a little grumpy is the best way to approach 'Le Jeu' - hitherto I had been TRYING to play and TRYING to play energetically, but I must remember to play honestly: It's very easy to get carried away with trying to impress Phil. Being such a wanker about it, i'm trying to say that I am relaxing into the class.

It is the beginning of the class. "Bon...So...So...We start!...Bon...So....So...We start the class" It seems that Philippe will continue this way merely stating the opening of the class, so I stick my hand up "Yes?" and I say "Can I be the Queen?" "The Queen of where?" "Of Namibia?" "Of Namibia? Yes! Everyone behind the Queen of Namibia" and we began to play 'Balthazar says.' Someone asked me for a kiss and instead of speaking quietly I sang out (in the style of Dan Lewis) "No way!" I am beginning to play. Hurrah.

After we play 'Balthazar says' we play a game called 'Mr Hit' and the game itself is great, but not worth noting here. I should have mentioned the protocol surrounding it before as it is pure Gaullier magic: Once we have gathered in a circle to play 'Mr Hit,' Gaullier pretends to make a phone call into his hand. "Allo?" he says, a look of inquiry dancing all the way through him "Allo? Stani? Stani! It's Phil! Philippe...Philippe Gaulier...non Gau-lli-er. Ah bon, so Stani we're going to play Mr Hit now, ok? Ok, say hi to Slavski, ok bye Stani. Au revoir!" That's right this wonderful playful-grumpy old man is pretending to phone Stanislavsky! To ask his permission to play a stupid game! HA. I love him!

After the games, we move to the exercises. Well, up to now i'd been enjoying studying with Gaullier, but I was beginning to feel a little dissappointed: Come on Phil! This insulting is fun, but where's the gore? I want blood! And sure enough, today Philippe pulled out the big guns. That's right, dear reader: I'm talking, in-depth personal confrontation.

We were doing an exercise on Major/Minor (i.e. of two people on stage at any one moment, one will be the focus, and one will be the support - think Laurel/Hardy)- a group of us are in the space and one person holds a tennis ball, the tennis ball represents the Major, and the ball (and therefore Major) is passed from person to person within the group. Philippe asked us, when we received the ball and passed into Major, to speak to "Mam, Dad, your boyfriend...whoever" and tell them "look at me! I am in Sceaux, in Paris! I am in Major!" etc etc.

The first tears of the course were shed when a very lovely oriental girl. (The ethereally beautiful one from blog 2) took the Major ball. She spoke, I've no idea what she said because she spoke in Mandarin, but it sounded beautiful - I could feel every male heart in the room heave a little sigh of desire - "Stop!" cries Philippe. "They have fish sellers in Hong Kong? Yes? Fruit Vegetable sellers? Speak like them" She tries "No! NO! NO! Louder!" Again she tries "LOUDER!" she continues to try, but there is palpable expectation in the air that Philippe is not going to give this one up until he's really done with her. "You are too well educated. Someone get some water" Everyone looks around, 'water?' 'why the...?' We were soon to find out. "Poor some water on her head. MORE! Now, mess up her hair. MORE." He looks to her "Ah, now you are thinking 'fuck you Philippe' yes? Now, the fish seller." He carried on trying to provoke her until they were there eye-to-eye Philippe growling "fuck you" and her, in tears "fuck. you." OOh it was FUN!!!

This continued and every person who tried was given simillar deconstruction. I, sadly, did not get a turn. During another person's "lesson" he asked for a female to work with him, and (due to the cold) I volunteered. He asked us to stand side-by-side at the end of the room and walk as if we were walking to the funeral of Princess Diana (I laughed - this is not what he meant) So we were to walk upright and with a clear "fixed point" while he played the National Anthem on his ipod. We did. "There is a difference in education here. Yes? You madame, you are very sophisticated. You monsieur, not so much. Go back, and do it exactly the same but this time with text. Madame you first." As we were walking back to the wall (because I am a wanker) all I could think of was Prufrock by Elliot (I think it's the only thing I can recite for as long as five minutes) so I did that. "Very Good madame. Zat was very good." HA! VERY GOOD? VERY GOOD! My partner then went and Philippe told him he was boring, and he said again "But madam, very well done." OHHH I am so chuffed! I have to admit that this exercise is on my territory - I can focus and speak slowly with a nice, poised voice - when it comes to bouffon/clown/mask (the rest of the course) I will be back to good old 'fucking boring.'

I will tell you of one amazing exercise more. Philippe was talking to us about 'hearing the echo' of your words - whether with the audience or a chorus etc. When one girl caught the ball and became Major, Philippe told her she had no joy: He told her to sit on a chair the other side of the room to us. He told her to move only when really compelled to. We sat at the other end of the room calling "Come!" "Come Nelly!" "Come!" She was drawn to us with a beautiful expression - she was, as Philippe would say "showing us her beauty."

Oh Philippe!

2007-10-14T05:36:00.000-07:00

Jesus! Jesus Christ! Philippe said I was "not so bad." I couldn't believe it, I almost wet my pants.

It was Friday afternoon and I was just having my first negative spell - could I really put up with the insults for a whole year? had I been fooling myself thinking I could cope? Was this really the right place for me? Philippe had been in characteristicaly vitriolic mood, although he declared at the beginning of Friday's session that he is not so mean to people on Fridays - it makes for a bad weekend. I didn't see any evidence of this leniancy - but maybe I will only get, (I hasten to say 'compliments', so rather) non-insults from Philippe on Fridays.

I jumped up to demonstrate the new exercise with a girl from Hong Kong. This girl is ethereally beautiful, she has one of those oriental faces that seem to radiate thousands of years of wisdom and peace. "So..." says Philippe, and I'm just thinking, come on you bastard - do your worst, "here we have two women who are both very...very..." he hesitates looking around the room "both very charming" ('fucking hell' I think, 'that's a compliment. Where's the joke?') One of them is slightly more charming than the other. I won't give a name, but so." Ha Ha Ha. We did the exercise (which was about using your voice in major, whilst playing a game) and he says "but you, you were not so bad. Quite surprising eh? Well done Madame" and I did a fucking curtsey. That's right.

We had a party on friday night for all the first years. We gathered in a bar near Gar de L'est - not one of the most picturesque areas of Paris - and we drank and talked and people danced. This is a boring account and I only record the event because I so impressed myself by managing to find a nightbus home on my own! I had to walk to Chatelet (30 mins south of gare de l'est) and find bus number N21 - I still can't believe I managed it. So I sat listening to Bob Dylan at 3.30 in the morning on le noctambus N21.

Life begins at Gaulier

2007-10-10T10:14:00.000-07:00

I have just finished my third day of study at l'ecole Philippe Gaulier. I have yet not stopped wondering just what exactly is going on. I'm in Paris! In bloody France! Paying to learn from a man who is clearly mad as a box of frogs!

The morning sessions are straightforward enough - it is the movement class, led by a very sweet and convivial Argentinian called Martin (sounds like Martine) we play and exercise and are beginning to learn the art of controlling the body. Afternoons are with Philippe and it is like no workshop environment i have ever encountered. Philippe always wears a hat and his tiny red spectacles are always perched in the middle of his face. He holds a drum on which he beats to punctuate his class. BANG! "You shut up now!" We begin each session with a game called "Bartholomew says" which is a version of 'Simon says.' BANG! "Who wants to be king?" and someone volunteers, everyone else follows behind the king as Bartholomew begins to shout his orders "Bartholomew says run. BANG" From this moment we are just a group of people running around - the entire concept of the king and us running behind as his subjects is totally lost - another moment of total absurdity in the Gaulier classroom - and we continue to play 'simon says.' "BANG! Stop running now! Nooooo there was no Bartholomew says - who stopped? Put your hands up if you stopped! Ah. What do you want?"

This is the part of the game where the running around stops and punishment must be dealt out to those who disobeyed Bartholomew. Philippe asks what you want and you have the following options as reply:
1. Nothing
2. A Kiss
3. Two nothings and a kiss
4. A kiss and four nothings
5. Four nothings and two kisses

The explanations of these are as follows:
1. Nothing - you want nothing, Philippe says 'bon': it is over
2. A kiss - you have to ask someone in the room if they will let you kiss them. If they say yes - then voila! you get to peck them on the cheek. However, if they say no, you must go to Gaulier. Gaulier puts down his drum, wrenches your arm up behind your back and bends you double, so that you wince with pain, then carries out a sequence of torture on you: shampoo (ruffles your skull) guillotine (chops the back of your neck) acupuncture (pinches the flesh on your shoulders) and then Le Pen in Algeria/Guantanamo (grabs your little finger and bends it backwards) Sometimes you get a chinese burn, then you're done.
3. 4. 5. etc etc Two nothings and a kiss - well, two times nothing is still nothing but you want a kiss aswell. Gaulier says you chose the nothings+kiss options if you "are not so confident about your body, if you think people may not kiss you."

Gaullier is funnier than I could have imagined. The rest of the afternoon consists of people doing exercises to the class (15%of the total time) and Philippe discussing if they were so boring we should kill them and how we should do it (85% of the time). For example, he stops a couple and says "so, that was totally boring. That was the most boring day of my life - maybe not the most boring but right up there. What do we think students? Do we think that we love these two, that these two are actors? Or do we think that they should be pharmacist in Sceaux? You go to the pharmacy in Sceaux, you will see, they are fucking boring. So maybe they are pharmacists and we set fire to the pharmacy? What do you think Roger?" Everyone replies that they are boring and that we should kill them - but everytime he says something funnier and more imaginative; i look around at my fellow students gazing upwards adoringly at this fountain, this rock of humour and spirit. He's phenomenal. He speaks slowly and definately. I did an exercise with another girl, and at the end he said: " That was totally boring. you two are totally boring. What do we think class? If these two were primary school teachers, do you think you would learn more, or do you think you burn down the school?

I have no idea what he wants - I guess that he wants us to show imagination, fun and pleasure - but as yet i don't know how to show him those things. It seems that he is creating an environment of silliness and disregard in which we will eventually be able to be free in our playing, but as yet it's a little like sitting with Derek and Clive in the pub, except 'Derek and Clive' are the most interesting, funny and warm old French man I have ever met.