To avoid being boring, you have to have a smile in your eyes, even laughter in your eyes. That means your eyes are having fun. When someone tells a joke, they are happy, they build suspense and for sure we’re going to have fun. You must always have jokes in your head. It’s good to always have lots of jokes in your head. Furthermore, if you’re going to fix an electrical wire, it’s a lot more fun with your head full of jokes. Everything’s more fun with lots of jokes in the head.
Theatre is already a joke because everything is made-up! The décor isn’t a real house – everything is fake. Everything is a joke… décor, music, even the light of day comes from spotlights… It’s all make believe, and that’s the best joke. We are going to show an imaginary world in a fake setting, it’s the big joke of theatre! Everything is to ‘pretend’, and yet you believe it. And that’s where the fun comes from: we’re telling you something ‘made-up’ while making you believe it’s real. That’s the great joke!
What makes a great actor? The one who never lets the game die. That’s what we’ll see in this first lesson: the game. What do you need to play well and with spirit? Repartee, the desire to win, complicity—like school children on their way to school.
Forty five years ago, when I was first making the programme of the school, I was nervous, just getting started, and I thought, “Ah yes, it’s true, but… and they don’t emphasize in school, not enough, the game. The game? “What do you mean Philippe?” I mean, you don’t see that students have their eyes full of play and mischief, eyes are full of madness, full of playful joy — like when you’re a child and you play tag or any childhood game. That’s when I invented a workshop called Le Jeu, filled with the pleasure of play. So every year, I had this moment of pleasure as a teacher, thinking, “Ah, what am I going to discover? What do I need to teach?” And that’s when I discovered Le Jeu — the pleasure of playing with eyes sparkling. We’re going to discover new things we didn’t know before. It made me so happy to make “Le Jeu” the first, most important workshop of my school. So I had the pleasure of teaching ‘Le Jeu’. Then, what next? Neutral mask, GreekTragedy. After that came Masked PLAY, Bouffon, Shakespeare and Chekhov, Character and Clown. What did I add over time? Oh yes, I added something completely wild – melodrama! I included melodrama, where you play at being sad to move people, to make the audience cry. And vaudeville, where you play at being happy, rich and elegant.
So now, I’ve already created lots of programmes for the school.
There you go, being left speechless by lightness — it’s sort of the definition of humor. An actor, when delivering very profound lines, must remain light — like clouds floating across the sky, or like humor itself. Something you can hardly touch because it’s so light. If I touch it, poof, it’ll fly away! “Oh look, this thought -it’s flying, it’s flying!” Isn’t it wonderful? A thought that flies is much more beautiful than a thought that’s heavy and can’t get off the ground.
By Philippe Gaulier 20 OCT 2024