At France’s famed Gaulier clown school, failure is the lesson : NPR

Left to right: Gaulier students Alayna Perry, Brian Byrne and Joseph Bucci receive feedback on a short skit involving a pie in the face.

Rebecca Rosman for NPR

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Rebecca Rosman for NPR

ÉTAMPES, France — The man in charge tonight is Carlo Jacucci. You are on stage. He is the audience. And there’s almost no chance he’ll like you – which, in one way or another, is exactly why you’re here.

“The games begin,” Jacucci, a neutral French-Italian, tells his students, then taps a drum between his legs.

The stage lights brighten. The music begins. A group of red-nosed clowns dressed in various costumes begin a ritual that has been the heartbeat of this place for over 40 years.

Zach Zucker performs in Stamp Town at the Fringe festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, in August last year. Zucker studied at the École Philippe Gaulier in France, and his traveling variety show draws inspiration from the school’s philosophy.

Jacinthe Oaten

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Jacinthe Oaten

This is the École Philippe Gaulier, a school that bears the name of its founder, a teacher for whom comedy and clowning do not begin with jokes, but with the pleasure of ridicule. Or, as Gaulier calls it, finding “your idiot.”

Doctors, priests, actors: they come from all over the world to study this philosophy in the sleepy village of Étampes, about an hour by train south of Paris. The loudest noises after sunset come from a room full of English speakers learning to fall on their faces.

A stroke in 2023 forced Gaulier, now in his 80s, to retire from full-time teaching. But the school still operates according to the system he built – and perpetuated by the teachers he trained – shaping every exercise, every critique. and nervous student hoping for a laugh.

Students love Brazilian actress Gabriela Flarys. She stands on stage in an oversized, frilly orange and white flamenco dress, prompting Jacucci to dub her “orange broccoli.”

Flarys’ number doesn’t go well. His scene partners are a man dressed as a Roman warrior and another as a mariachi with an oversized sombrero. The premise involves a love triangle.

The members of the Stamp Town the ensemble will perform at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, in August 2025. The show’s ringmaster is Zach Zucker, an alumnus of the École Philippe Gaulier in France.

Jacinthe Oaten

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Jacinthe Oaten

“Welcome everyone to the worst part of class,” Jacucci said flatly. “We reached it.”

The trio looks at him. They are confused. Ashamed.

The worst moment has a name here — the flop. This is the part everyone dreads, when you feel your red nose start to droop as dead air fills the room. But this is also where the real work begins.

Jacucci singles out Flarys. She needs more emotion. He tells her to get angry with him. What happens next is almost like an exorcism.

“Squid!” » » she shouts, shouting Jacucci’s first name. “I’m pissed!”

She gets louder. And stronger. Until something breaks loose. Then she calms down.

“Wait,” she tells the crowd, then picks up a shaving cream pie and throws it in the mariachi’s face.

The room laughed with her. Even Jacucci looks stunned.

“I’m shocked,” he said. “I didn’t know you could change.”

Painful but also refreshing

Student Tufan Nadjafi dresses as a bullfighter during his classes at the École Philippe Gaulier in Étampes, France. Famous alumni of the school include actors Sacha Baron Cohen, Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham Carter.

Rebecca Rosman for NPR

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Rebecca Rosman for NPR

Teaching is Jacucci’s second act.

A long-time artist, he arrived at Gaulier as a student several decades ago. He says he found the experience painful, but also refreshing.

“[Gaulier] had no problem telling me the truth about what he saw,” he says.

“I immediately felt that it was a job that allows you to progress, because you are confronted with your limits.”

Gaulier’s method has produced an unlikely list of alumni: including actors Rachel Weisz and Emma Thompson, both Oscar winners, as well as Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen.

A new generation is also emerging.

Ten years ago, Zach Zucker was working for Baron Cohen’s production company in Los Angeles when Gaulier came to town to teach a workshop. Zucker signed up.

“And five minutes later, I saw Philippe working his magic, and I just couldn’t believe what I was watching,” Zucker said.

Zucker had trained at American improvisation schools, including Second City and Upright Citizens Brigade. But it was different. Other places teach you how to succeed. Gaulier, he said, taught people how to fail.

“Everyone has a talent for being good,” Zucker says. “But if you can be good at being bad, then nothing is bad – and it’s actually more enjoyable.”

Zucker eventually moved to Étampes, where he studied under Gaulier for two years.

Today he is the ringmaster of Stamp Towna traveling vaudeville show that draws heavily on the Gaulier philosophy. His alter ego, Jack Tucker, repeatedly bombs on stage – and incorporates failure into part of the act.

It’s an idea that’s gaining ground: the series will air its first Netflix special later this year.

Julia Masli applied to the school ten years ago after learning there was no audition process.

“So I signed up right away and that was basically my only training,” she says.

In her one-woman show, Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!Masli invites the audience to share their problems, which she then helps solve in real time. The show became a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe festival.

Despite her success, Masli admits she spent years struggling to laugh. Gaulier’s brutal training helped prepare her.

She remembers telling him she was from Estonia.

“He kept saying that it was a very gray country and that there was no funny person there,” she recalls.

Founded in 1980, École Philippe Gaulier has earned a reputation for teaching students how to fail and keep going.

Rebecca Rosman for NPR

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Rebecca Rosman for NPR

Masli quickly learned that his teacher would never settle for anything less than brilliant.

The pleasure of being ridiculous

Gaulier was born in Nazi-occupied Paris in 1943. He trained to become a serious actor, but noticed that whenever he appeared on stage, the audience would laugh.

Gaulier studied and then worked with mime teacher Jacques Lecoq. In 1980, Gaulier founded his own school, which operates in Paris, London and for 15 years in Étampes.

This does not mean that everyone is cut out for this job.

“This pleasure of being ridiculous… of having a particular humor… it is given to certain people,” Gaulier told the BBC in 2015. “But not many.”

Michiko Miyazaki Gaulier, his wife and former student, now manages the daily operations of the school, respecting the Gaulier calendar and method. She promises that everyone leaves with something.

“People come here for a change,” she says. “Maybe they don’t know what, but they want to change.”

Back in Jacucci’s classroom, students are still figuring out what that change looks like.

After class, Frank Benson, the Roman warrior, still catches his breath.

“It was tough today,” said Benson, who came from Australia to study here. “Sometimes you go in there and it flops really hard, and it’s not that fun.”

But, he says, he’s getting used to it. The disappointment passes more quickly now.

In another corner of the room, Flarys, aka Orange Broccoli, is wiping sweat from her face.

She has a confession: this is actually her third time at the school. Even with over 15 years of stage experience, there’s something that keeps her coming back here.

What did she learn?

She says, “Nothing is a mistake if you play with it.” »