16 lessons from legendary clown school instructor Philippe Gaulier

Sacha Baron Cohen says he’s the funniest man he’s ever met.

'Once you can handle the insults, you begin': inside Philippe Gaulier's clown school [The Guardian] profiles the clowning legend.

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.”

The Dumbledore of Clowning [NYT] is another good profile of him.

Compared with other clowning teachers, Gaulier said he does not emphasize technique or physical virtuosity. His pedagogy aims for something more intangible, nurturing a childlike spirit, a sense of play onstage. The most important quality in a clown is keeping things light and present, and, as he said with the utmost respect, stupid. Finding “your idiot,” as he calls it, is the essence of clowning, which, unlike comic acting, requires a performer to stick with the same character. “A clown is a special kind of idiot, absolutely different and innocent,” he said. “A marvelous idiot.”

Some of Gaulier’s clowning advice (collected from those articles):

1. Be ridiculous and sensitive

2. Be at ease with the audience (but don’t get too comfortable)

3. Feel the joy of pretending

4. Stand still

5. Look at the audience

6. Don’t take yourself too seriously

7. Be happy to fail

8. Be allergic to pretension

9. Nurture a childlike spirit

10. Have a sense of play onstage

11. Keep things light, present, and stupid

12. Find “your idiot”

13. Attack falseness

14. Get your ego out of the way

15. Do it with lightness.

16. “Always light. Even if you kill someone.”

Philippe Gaulier

Gaulier on why ridiculousness is good for a clown:

“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.”

British standup Elf Lyons on studying with Gaulier:

“He always says, ‘We’re doing the best job in the world. If you’re not the happiest person in the world to be on stage, then don’t go on stage.’” Lyons isn’t an actor, nor a clown – she’s a standup. But Gaulier’s teaching has been invaluable, she says, because “it’s about being at ease with the audience. It’s about the joy of pretending. It teaches you simple things like standing still, looking at the audience, not taking yourself seriously, being happy to fail.”

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