September Workshops
BOUFFON
MELODRAMA
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September Workshops |
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| Special Weekend Session | Morning Session | Afternoon Session | ||||
| LE JEU | LE JEU BOUFFON MELODRAMA |
CLOWN | ||||
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SPECIAL 2-DAY Weekend Workshop |
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| days SEPTEMBER 15-16 | |||
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An introduction to the teachings of Philippe Gaulier. This workshop will be a short version of the Ecole Gaulier foundational course Le Jeu. The basic relationships of actor/audience and actor/actor will be explored. |  |
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THE TEACHINGS OF PHILIPPE GAULIER |
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MORNING SESSION 2 weeks M-F weekday mornings SEPTEMBER 17-28 The morning session will focus on teachings from the Ecole Gaulier. Specifically: Le Jeu, Bouffon and Melodrama. |
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LE JEU LE JEU LE JEU |
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| "Jeu" - game and play - is the source of everything: of the pleasure and desire to be an actor. Playing in the theatre is the same as playing at running, jumping, fighting as people and animals do : playing cowboys, Indians, soldiers, doctors and with dolls. In the workshop on the "Jeu." Students learn to place the pleasure of playing at the center of their work. This pleasure is then increased through the development of complicite with their partner. Complicite, fixed point, and the rapport between the actor who plays in major and the one who responds in minor are a few of the basic skills that will be explored through clown, buffoon, melodrama, and Shakespeare. | |||
| We learn to say that we are actors and that it's scary but then burst out laughing. Being big, walking without losing one's marvellous aura, displaying a tremendous charm, being happy to have been singled out by the gods and to have had inscribed above one's head a unique and iniquitous destiny; is not all this the source of extreme pleasure for the hero? And extreme pleasure for the actor? |  |
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| The student will ask himself: Is my pleasure immense when I play with the freshness of my childhood before a thousand spectators, or not really so immense? If it's not immense, leave the stage. You won't be loved enough. |
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BOUFFON |
The Bouffon, the mad, the pariah | ||
| The bouffon is a crippled outcast, a lame person, a legless or one-armed cripple, a dwarf, a midget, a whore, a homosexual, a witch, a heretical priest, a madman. He has not been chosen by the gods. He has been chased into the swamps and ghettos by the children of god in fact, who have seized the opportunity to announce that in view of the bouffon's physical and moral ugliness, the father could not be a great artist of international fame. So his father was the opposite of God, his father was the devil Lucifer. The bouffon was elected son of the devil and he was happy about this. He was happy to be the son of the first Tempter and of the first woman seduced: Eve. |  |
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In the bouffon workshop we learn to be a big person who enjoys being small, with a special additional pleasure enjoyed by these people: the blasphemy. | ||
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MELODRAMA |
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| Melodrama is a form of ideological theatre born in France around the mid-19th century. The actors played for the ordinary, poor people sitting up in the fourth gallery. | |||
The actors gave everything they had. They exaggerated the gestures, the voice, the sentiments, the attitudes, the movements, because the subject of the play was extremely important: the suffering of the poor people; and because the theatre company was unable to afford enough lights to illuminate the stage. They copiously exaggerated their gestures, spoke in loud, slow voices full of pathos, greatly amplified the noise of their shoes and when they stopped moving, their fixed point lasted a long time, a very long time. The melodrama actors show an incomparable pleasure in playing, and the exaggeration on which they built this style remains today a great lesson in theatre. |
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THE TEACHINGS OF PHILIPPE GAULIER |
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AFTERNOON SESSION 2 weeks M-F weekday afternoons SEPTEMBER 17-28 The afternoon session will focus on Clown. |
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THE CLOWN |
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| Finding one's own clown, in other words a unique idiotic character, is an important moment in a person's life. It helps when everybody is ready to let idiotic, silly, mad things burst out because the pleasure of being together is great. The way in which the clown plays is very special. He uses not only his normal virtuosity as an actor, but also the frequent appearance of a playmate: the flop. In my school, we call him Mr Flop, because we treat him with a hell of a lot of respect. | |||
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Mr Flop says to the clown: "Salvage what you can." So the clown lets the audience see the great delight of a child who wants to stay on the stage, and who lets out a very special yell. We carry on loving him. He has saved the show. This childish pleasure is like that of one of my sons who when I ask him to go to bed because it is late and friends are there drinking and having fun around the table, goes off muttering that none of this is fair and he is not tired. Five minutes later he's back again, hugging the walls, hiding behind the furniture, the curtains. He will pop out soon. He will let out a very special yell and show his great desire to stay. OK - ten minutes but no more. |
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| If the pleasure in staying is great, then the clown is forgiven. He's allowed to be no good over and over again. If the pleasure is not great, the clown will look like someone ashamed at being no good. He won't be loved. We're back to this notion of pleasure which throughout the year will refuse to leave us alone. | |||
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