DOUBLE ZERO

DOUBLE ZERO! I swear to god if he gives me that mark one more time I will buy my own drum and start beating Gaulier with it. Mentally, spiritually, literally! Well actually I won’t … because I’m not an empowered woman these days. No I’m Ian - an awkward NZ bloke who once found love with an admin chic called Janette but has since been less lucky in love. On a bit of a whim (Well let’s face it - Because Janette once told him “you’re a bit funny you know”) Ian quit his job working for a tampon factory in the south island and has ventured to Paris (Etampes) to find his inner beauty and pleasure on stage.

This is my reality. Each day I dress up in oversized jeans, a pink polo shirt, woolen vest, sneakers, a bucket hat and paint on a beard in an attempt to impress my 80 something year old clown master.  It’s certainly a weird and wonderful phase in my life. I had this beautiful moment in the girl’s bathroom where a bunch of us were applying beards, comb over’s, fat stomachs etc. and I thought OH THIS IS TOO GOOD. My life has peaked - A bunch of ladies trying to be dudes. Instead of applying lip-gloss, de wedgifying uncomfortable underwear, fruffing up my hair or reshaping my boob up in my bra (Don’t pretend you don’t do this)… I was painting on a beard and finally celebrating the facial hair I could paint black with mascara.

My second week of characters was a total struggle. In week 1 I had been successful with my character Ian and somewhere over the weekend I started to invent pointless rules. Like “Oh I’m not sure if Ian would be interested in dating that character… or maybe he wouldn’t drink gin like that at a bar… or lean on his left leg casually etc.” WHO bloody entered my mind and told me what Ian was!? God success is a weird thing. The moment you get it – you desperately try to maintain it or replicate it and not discover anything new. But do not fear Gaulier certainly told me where to put my self-sabotage! Back in windy Wellington under a rock with a crab and a stolen pubic hair. So if you’re looking for it – that’s where he put it. 

This school is really like surviving in a jungle. I should mention I’ve never been to a jungle but there are always animal noises, a drum and potential death when it comes to Gaulier. You are thrown onto stage in the dark, he beats his drum several times, the lights come up and you begin. If you are about to die he raises his stick and the class start whistling and making weird animal noises to warn you you’re close to a flop. At this point your choices are to change or die. Typically the actor on stage starts dancing, singing, raising the stakes, returning to things the audience loved… ANYTHING to be loved and given more stage time. What is amazing about this place is that the other students in class desperately try to save you. They mouth at you to be louder or quieter on your feet or more depressed or more still etc. They know what Gaulier hates about you on stage because they hate you for it too. But they are on your side. And so is Philippe.  (Even when he’s telling an Asian boy that what he did on stage was so shit he should call up Malaysian airlines and say “We have one more passenger.”)

Watching him work with other students is just as insightful as one’s own experience on the course. For some students the struggle is to push less, shut up, be softer on the feet and achieve subtlety before he slaps you. For others it is to give more, speak up, have more fun and fight for your place on stage.  All of us with the same goal: to be loved by the audience and find the pleasure. Each day Gaulier gives our character a new challenge: To escape jail, propose to your love, visit a bar in Vegas, sell a car, report on the weather, host a cooking show, give a political speech, compete in a talent show… you get the idea. The exercises are totally mad and certainly not your standard ‘acting’ curriculum.

 In week 2 and 3 I had various ups and downs with Ian. He told me he loved me when I was depressed, that I had a good fun, found the game with other characters and was suprizing but then on other days that I didn’t give enough, wasn’t loud enough, had a limiting voice, didn’t play with the audience etc. I’ll translate it to his words now: “That was MERDE. HORRIBLE. SHIT. BLUFGHG. Flod. ” The man still can’t say my name but I know he’s just doing it to get a laugh. There is a girl in my class called Imo but he will only call her “E-Moooo”. He plays this gag daily and on Thursday he half said her name “E” – then pushed play on his I-pod and a cow “Moo” played. How long he had been planning that prank I have no idea. But the moral of the story? The old bastard will go to any length for a laugh so watch out.

Despite the torture, the school and method of training is addictive. When he says you were “awful like hair dressers dog shit” it is painful but at the same time liberating. Because this is not a place that you have to pretend something was working when it wasn’t. The man is a master at discovering beautiful moments with his actors by pushing them almost to the point of crisis so that they MUST change and must discover the fun within. One girl in particular had a massive break through because she found the fun in simply shouting at him and losing her shit. Too many double zeros had broken her to the point that she no longer cared and subsequently was fearless and beautiful to watch on stage. Her pleasure came from the crisis. For me my pleasure seems to lie in being an awkward, offbeat, depressed character – GOD KNOWS WHAT THAT SAYS ABOUT ME. Towards the end of the week a few people switched characters for a day and it was so successful. I tried it myself and played a hysterical, mad, laughing professor for an afternoon. It was so much fun and so easy to see what was joyous and beautiful about some one else’s character on stage. And I guess that is the job. To find the beauty in your own character’s costume Every. Single. Day. Re new it and share it with the audience because “PLEASURE IS NOT FOR YOURSELF YOU SELFISH MERDE.”