last day of school

Because I didn’t get up on stage yesterday, I came in with a little drag to my feet and a feeling like I wouldn’t get up today. Like it was already in some way over and I would watch and not work so hard on the last day. Part of me already disappointed at myself for having given up.

The exercise today was to tell the story of our biggest flops over the past four weeks.

One guy had a brilliant moment. He has been an unmitigated disaster onstage since he started. He has looked harsh, fake, arrogant, un-playful and been sent off stage at the earliest possible opportunity every single time. So much so that it seems amazing that he stayed.

His moment today was the kind of thing you wouldn’t believe in fiction. He stood up with a gentle smile, self-depreciating, self-aware and lightly, simply told the story of three of his worst disasters. We shouted with laughter and gave him a rolling round of applause as he took off his nose and walked towards his seat. It was like a miracle, and such a relief.

Gaulier was his usual self, insulting and demanding, but the people who got up were given time and pushed to an extent that hasn’t happened before.

Best insult for the day goes to: “He is not a clown, he’s a cousin of Slava and just he is waiting for the snow.”

Clown philosophy moment: “You stay nice in your shoes: you can’t meet your clown.”

It became clear after break that he was accepting people to get up who were at the worse end of the spectrum during the month. I put up my hand to see if I could have a turn, partially hoping for the compliment of being told “not you” and partially so I wasn’t disappointed in myself for not trying.

me, semi-gorilla, waiting to see if I get a turn

He nodded at me last, after saying yes to a little list of others and right until the end I didn’t know if I would get a turn. Fifteen minutes before we finished he found me with his eyes and I got up.

It’s been confusing because he has been making everybody yell. And I can see what works about it. The flushed faces the focussed eyes, the funny involuntary body movements. People are told again and again – “louder louder louder”

But it has been my quiet voice coming in beside my loud voice that has made people laugh the whole time.

So I yell because I think that is the exercise. But the shouting voice doesn’t seem to work. It makes me not notice the audience. I see Amy with her hands over her ears and tell him I don’t want to hurt my audience. He directs me to speak quieter and more deeply. After a bit of playing I find something so deep it almost clenches the back of my throat. People laugh.

He sends me off the stage. “We like her better when she leaves.” The thing that feels bad about him saying this is that it was the lesson of the first day. And I still haven’t really learned it. When he calls me back on I come but too fast (too confident?) and he sends me back again.

Then he tells me I am fantastic.

I stand there, just by the wings looking at his face and he is telling me how good I am. And I have watched him do this with other people, to pull out their vulnerable, sweet, post-compliment smile.

So I don’t believe him.

I don't know what to do. “I don’t trust you.” I say. Because it is better than trying to give him the face he is looking for. The face you can’t fake. No-one laughs. He says something about being put in a hard position if I don’t trust him.

“I thought I should tell the truth.” I say, still in my funny deep voice. They suddenly break with laughter. It's always so strange and amazing when the group bursts with laughter when I'm on stage. I have no idea what it is that makes them laugh.

I spend a bunch of time up there, taking what he gives and trying to give what he asks.

At some point I say, “I’m so confused.” I have given up trying to understand, but I’m right there on the stage giving them my confusion. They laugh again. I don't know why they laugh, but it makes me so happy.

He asks me to sing, softly, the best song I know. I sing the song already in my head, looking directly at him the whole time.

He ducks his head occasionally and begins to mutter little compliments at me, so quietly I can hardly hear them. I am on the edge of tears the whole time and they are love-tears. The tears that come when you are entirely ready to hold and be held. Each time he compliments me I show something on my face. A kind of smile. Happy and embarrassed to be complimented. Not trusting the compliment. I have no idea what the smile looks like. I don’t look away from his eyes.

In the end he says, “This is a good clown for you. So sensitive. Saying things like, “I don’t trust you.” Receiving compliments." He pauses and then: "You had a sensitive family”

I suppose I did.

And of course when you are looking for the childlike, naïve, clown-person in someone, that part of them will probably reflect their own childhood.

As my turn finished the clock hit 6pm and it was time to start saying goodbyes.

friends getting their photo taken before they say goodbye

Goodbye Philippe (kiss on the bristly grey beard)

Goodbye new friends (wandering the night-time streets together in a last-ditch attempt to gather all the love, hugging goodbye outside bars and on metro steps, at one, two, three in the morning)

Goodbye Paris (gazing up at the now-familiar 19^th century skylines as I walk, my gorilla costume strapped to the outside of my pack, down to Pigalle station and on to the Eurostar)

"Not extremely bad. Surprising."

I met Dustin for lunch at a patisserie around the corner from the ecole and it was good. He put his arm across my shoulder for a moment and said, “you’re pretty hard on yourself aren’t you.”

Which was sweet, but I don’t know if it’s true. I think I’m fairly gentle with myself, just also very honest.

patisserie moment

We did a little dance around me trying to establish that I didn’t want reassurance or to be fixed (‘I don’t think you’re broken’ he replied. Correct answer.)

He told me things he has noticed about me and had done on stage: My laugh, where I shake my shoulder a little and my body leans a little crookedly, my tripping-forward-over-myself walk, the way I’m always trying to get the answers right.

It gave me the understanding that maybe I was supposed to get from the exercise: that I am ridiculous and loveable. It gave me a sense that it would be possible to be ‘light with myself’ in the way that Philippe keeps asking us to be. I stopped feeling humiliated. We ran back to school in the rain to find everyone costuming up.

annie blacking her teeth in preparation

Today in Samuel Says, instead of strategically asking for kisses from the people I thought most likely to kiss me, I tried asking the least likely. More people said no and it was still fun for me because my judgement was being validated.

We did a bunch of ‘make a noise’ exercises: make a noise like a pressure cooker in love for the first time, like a baby babbling and then doing a poo, like various absurdly racist things that were actually funny in the group but might not work if I write them here.

When it was my turn, I did the thing he had directed me to do last week, where I do the noise and then speak to myself in an encouraging little voice, ‘bravo ailsa, well done’ It worked. Each time I made the noise people laughed, and each time I congratulated myself people laughed. He said, ‘Not extremely bad. Surprising.’ Which is Gaulier-gold-compliments on a platter.

It’s true that each time I speak to myself in that small congratulatory voice it makes me very happy. Doing the ‘exercise’ doesn’t feel like it would give me pleasure, but watching people laugh at me today made me realise that it was working somehow

‘Your clown is near your body’ as the man says.

Luke also got a, ‘Not extremely bad. Surprising.’ And his irrepressible smile at the compliment was delightful.

Two favourite insults for the day (apart from the deeply wrong one about Oslo which won’t bear translation):

‘Don’t shuffle like a penguin who is sad about his balls’

And to an English girl, ‘Don’t play innocent. There is no Roast-Beef innocent’

QC in his angel dress in the break talking seriously with Christy

In the afternoon we did a fight. Fight like you are putting it on for your family, for the fun. Two fighters and a referee who only knows one thing about being a referee: to say ‘one, two, three.’ Nonetheless the referee is taking their job very seriously and wants to be believed.

I fought Luke.

I wanted to fight him because I knew that I wouldn’t be afraid to hit him.

It was really, really fun for me. Just whacking out at him with flailing, slapping, gorilla-clad arms. Gaulier said we didn’t look enough at the audience and I know he was right. But it was so fun. I don't think I've had that much fun in front of the group since we started. I’d like to do it again, to try looking at the audience as well.

Our referee was brilliant – I noticed her acknowledging the flop – which made some things we did funny, even though they hadn’t been before.

referee extraordinaire

I keep noticing again and again how Philippe is teaching us to listen to the flop. His moment of silence after someone has done something un-funny and then the perfectly timed insult. We laugh as much at the flop as at the awful things he says.

Also his slightly mocking, caressing voice: ‘And here, the intellectual genius,’ as I am about to try the exercise. It is enough to make me proud of myself and to laugh at myself in the same moment. It sets us up to succeed.

We go out into Paris. Again with the big-group-dawdling, useless wander. The conversations that stop twelve people at a street corner or mean that 3 people are so involved that they forget to get off the metro. It’s funny and stupid and we end up dancing in a Brazilian bar just a ten minute walk from our apartment and bed.