My Week with Phillipe Gaulier

Last Modified: Nov 11, 2024

Originally published July 23rd, 2019. This was written before I came out as trans, so I refer to myself in the feminine.

Here are some of my experiences training in workshops with Phillipe Gaulier over five days at Trestle Theatre in July 2019. I haven’t detailed every exercise, only significant events, so if it looks like I didn’t do much on some days, that is because the rest of the day didn’t translate as well to interesting writing. I worked for four hours every day, and the whole week was excellent value for money.

Monday

When I entered the studio and took a seat with twenty-nine other people, it wasn’t long before Phillipe appeared. A short elderly man with a mass of grey hair and little round glasses. He spoke in a croaky, grumbly French accent.

The exercises were simple. Most of them playground games, but any time we messed up, bom-bom! went his drum. Then Phillipe would turn to the nearest student,

“Now this guy here… do you think he is boring, or is he fucking boring?”

This sort of comment happened every thirty seconds or so, but never without reason. Despite his bizarre appearance, Phillipe is sharp as a pin and effortlessly funny. I got up to do an exercise, and Gaulier addressed my partner.

“This woman. Would you go on holiday with her?”

“Er, yes, I think so.” My partner responded.

“Ahh… Then you are Jesus Christ, dying on the cross for the rest of us,” and everyone laughed at me.

But the atmosphere was never nasty. Phillipe’s clownish appearance and amiable voice makes him impossible to take seriously, and you soon realise it doesn’t matter that twenty-nine people are laughing at you, because in five minutes, he’ll be ripping the shit out of someone else while YOU sit by and laugh. It busted egos and put us all in the same boat.

That day we played a Slaps game. You and your partner lock eyes, and hold your hands palms up, theirs over yours. Then, you try to slap your partner’s palms, while they pull away to avoid you. The fun comes from eye contact.

“Look at your partner’s eyes,” says Phillipe, “are they the eyes of an actor, or are they the eyes of a fish, locked in a suitcase for sixty years in Vietnam?” This introduced us to the idea of complicité, which is the sense you and someone else are both in on the game, together.

Tuesday

Today, we split into two groups and my half were first. We had to jump a big skipping rope one at a time, with no gaps. If all of us made it round, we started again with two jumps each. Me and a few others were so bad that we were moved to a separate group known as “the graveyard”. Remember this for later.

Next, we played Grandmother’s Footsteps. A group line up on the back wall, with Grandmother at the front of the stage. While Grandmother’s back is turned, the others creep up. If she turns around, they freeze. Anyone caught moving goes back. The first to tag Grandmother wins.

“Look,” said Phillipe, when everyone was frozen. “They hold the game in their body, and their eyes, even while not moving.” This concept carried to the next exercise in a more powerful way.

The ball throw game looks easy. A group gets up, music plays, and they dance around the thrower who has a football. The thrower finds someone to throw to, makes eye contact, and when the ball is caught, the music stops.

“Then you must look, as if to say, ‘thank you my little classmate for the game’ and turn to us with the same attitude with which you caught the ball. And then, you may speak a text.” said Gaulier. A text could be a memorised piece, or improvised.

I was fascinated by this. It worked with immediate effect on people who understood it. They turned to us, changed. A certain look in their eye, a gravitas. I realised later that a key part of this is having a genuine pleasure to be on stage, as well as the “thank you”, which lets you visibly take the game from someone else.

In improv, I’m used to the game of a scene being talked about as an abstract concept, that you fumble for in the dark. Phillipe talks about ‘game’ as a tangible force that is contained and moved between physical objects and people. I’m still thinking about what this might mean for the way I play games in improv in the future.

“If we do not see your pleasure of the game, we cannot feel pleasure in watching you.” said Gaulier. “You cannot be on the stage in the same way you buy your fish and chips.”

It all seemed old fashioned, but at the same time, it tapped into something ancient about that unique relationship between live actor and live audience.

Wednesday

Today we played the echo game. All you do is speak a text, and imagine your voice is echoing off a huge cavern, and enjoy the game of it. I nearly got this one right, but suffered from my uninspired improv. Bom-bom! went the drum. Phillipe looked at me. “We do not want to hear about your shitty boyfriend, or your shitty family. Thank you.” And he moved on to the next person.

Watching this game done well was simple but gripping. A young man, who Phillippe mercilessly teased for his “pink half-trousers” improvised a Roman emperor-sort of text. It came across as if he spoke to hundreds, with a patient, regal tone to his words and presence.

We played the ball throwing game again today. And one young woman didn’t quite get it this time.

“Is she a brilliant actress or is she a primary school teacher?” Phillipe turned to us, “someone give her two chairs, and I need four people.”

The girl was directed to sit with her feet up, and to speak her text while the other four tickled her. I was baffled. Last night on the phone I had insisted to my boyfriend Richard that I wasn’t in a cult, but now I wasn’t sure. The girl spoke her text.

“Twinkle, twinkle, little st– ha!” And the moment she lost control to giggles, her stiffness dropped away, breaking her into a helpless smile.

“In that moment you were beautiful,” Phillipe said, afterwards. “Everyone can be beautiful on stage. Everyone. But there is no recipe. Every actor is different. And it is the job of the teacher to say ‘this doesn’t work.’ And you must find some other way.”

Thursday

Something I haven’t mentioned is the game we played at the beginning of each day. You all walk around following instructions, but only if they start with “Samuel says”. If you mess up, your penalty is to ask someone for a kiss on the cheek. If you pretend you’re innocent and get caught, you have to get twenty. If three people decline you, you go to the front, bend over, and get slapped on the back by Phillipe (it doesn’t hurt, but it’s more entertaining to pretend it does). I not only got dobbed in by one of the bloody event organisers, but failed to get my kisses and got a slap. I think that humiliation gave me a burst of confidence, as the next thing that happened was truly weird.

We played the rope jump game again. The two “good” groups went first, then it came to the “graveyard” group. I was determined to not be sent to the even worse “crematorium” group. The rope swung, I tripped on it, and went to the back. On my next turn, I tripped, went to the back again. Third time, tripped again.

“Give me another go.” I said. They swung it, and I tripped again.

“You have to go to the back.” One of the organisers told me.

“No. I can do it. I can do it. Swing the rope!” I said.

“You need to go to the back.”

“I can do it. I can do it!” I was shouting now. “SWING THE ROPE! SWING! SWING! SWING!” I was screaming at the top of my voice and jumping around like I was insane. I felt out of control. I heard my team and everyone else cheering and clapping. They swung the rope. I jumped it successfully and heard a huge cheer. “You see?” I shouted, still at the top of my voice, “I told you I could do it!”

“We’ll take a break now,” said one of the organisers. I sat down and did some embroidery, shaking from head to toe.

Later I was talking to one of the organisers, the one who dobbed me in during Samuel Says.

I said, “If I had done that anywhere else, the teacher would have said ‘get out’.”

He shrugged. “Bad teachers.” He said. “The education in this country is terrible. You train for exams, and you have to do everything in the proper rigid way and then it’s over. From the moment I denounced you in Samuel Says you went on a journey. You weren’t told to do that thing with the rope, you just did it. You offered something huge and won over the whole auditorium. That’s exactly what we’re looking for in this work.”

I thought I was going to get a stern talking to or even be asked to leave, but to be encouraged was astonishing.

Friday

Today, I became the most frustrated I was all week, but also learned the most. I played a tag-rugby game with one other student. We hung neckties at the back of our trousers and had to try and grab our opponent’s necktie, maintaining eye contact. I was overambitious and shortly my tie was seized.

“Now,” said Gaulier, to my partner. “You must tease her with the tie.”

My partner waved it in front of me. I slowly walked forward, and yanked it back. Then it was my turn to tease. I started. Bom-bom! went Phillipe’s drum. “Stop. You broke the game. Now he gets the tie.” Me and my partner went back and forth, but always, when I had to tease, I got the bom-bom! for breaking the game. Eventually, we were asked to sit back down. I was incredibly angry with myself. All I had wanted to do was just play the game, and I had kept fucking it up before we could get into a flow.

At lunchtime, I spoke to my partner.

“I’m sorry I kept breaking the game. I didn’t understand what I was doing wrong and I think we both could have learned something if I had done it right. I apologise.”

He smiled at me.

“I think your problem was you kept trying to win,” He said. “and not to play. You didn’t want to risk it.”

“But we could have learned better if I had done the game right.”

“No, not at all. That’s what you learned.”

After lunch, another simple exercise. A group of us lined up on the back wall and were asked to walk like a model to the front of the stage, turn, then walk back. First we went as a group then as individuals. It was my turn. After a few seconds, bom-bom!

“You need to smile more,” said Phillipe. “You look like a member of the Salvation Army.” Back I went, and tried again. “Some text as well please,” he said. I improvised something about a hotel room, before- bom-bom! “Smile with your body. And do not speak at the same pace as your walk, or you say the text twice. Next time, take more risks. Thank you.”

Soon after that, the last day came to a close.

Conclusionday

So what have I learned? Phillipe’s teaching is hard work. He rarely gives you the answers, and when he does, they are not necessarily useful. We were never given a lesson plan, or even an explanation of the themes for each day, or learning outcomes, except “don’t be shit”. He tells you you’re boring, humiliates you, and you have to fail over and over and over again. And, for me, that was enlightening and actually boosted my confidence. It was so bizarre to have no welfare talk at the beginning, and a teacher who could be so rude and harsh, but to also feel totally safe and filled with energy. For others, I can understand it might be total hell. But to be boring for a moment, here’s what I feel I learned.

Note: I don’t want to give the impression all improvisers should follow this, because, of course, there is no one-size-fits all for learning. Also, I am training to work in theatre, and my motivations for performing may be different that yours. Phillipe teaches at Trestle Arts Theatre every year in July, so keep an eye out for when the next opportunity comes around if you’re interested. Thank you for reading.