first day of clown school

We give ourselves an hour to get lost on the way to Sceaux. Which we don’t really need but we would have if we’d had to pronounce it in order to find it. Amuse ourselves on the train by reading the station names in an ocker aussie accent. Wander through Sceaux and find our school, who’s only signage is the little bit of lettering above the doorbell: ‘ecole philippe gaulier’ and we climb the five flights of stairs, just a little trepidatious and unsure where the door might be.

We don’t have all the money to pay and when I say that I’ll bring it tomorrow, Michiko says she won’t be there and that I should seal the envelope very strongly because it is dangerous to give it to Philippe.

He is charming and insulting, like a doddery old man but sharp as a tack. He says:

‘You have to be a beautiful idiot.’

‘Come onto the stage like no-one is waiting for you.’

‘You have to be fucking funny. If you’re not funny you’re not a clown.’

We play torture Samuel Says and do two exercises over the 3 hours:

Enter and be funny. Be told you’re a bad clown and get off.

Enter and do a dressage act for the audience as if the audience is your family.

I feel that I can see what people do that works. And what doesn’t work. And I have some sense of what he is asking us to do. But damned if I can do it.

‘You play too much,’ he says to me and, ‘when it is hunting season, I would shoot her in the forest,’ and, ‘we like you better when you leave the stage.’

The questions people ask at the end are: ‘Why do you kick people off stage?’ and ‘What do you mean ‘be an idiot?’’ Both of which are really good questions, and ones it feels like need to be realised rather than explained.

On the train home we are relieved and tired. It's not so aweful being told you are a bad clown. In fact it's kind of fun.