Bon. Voila la tragedie Grecque:

I give you now a rule for tragedie Grecque and for all theatre: tragedy, comedy, bon.

The stage is a tray, balancing on the centre point. Someone enters, they go to the centre and the stage is balanced. Bon. Someone else enters, they explore the new environment and the inhabitants must balance them. More and more enter and we have chorus and individual exploring, etc etc, bon. It is exactly the same problem with immigration eh? Bon

Now, we sit round the walls of the room. STUDENTS! You must move the benches as your professeur has asked you - around ze walls of ze room! Allez. Bon.

(we move the benches to create an amphithetre and Philippe finds a track on his ipod - it is a recording of a very famous French man talking about the german occupation of Paris: he speaks beautifully, full of rhetoric and emotion)

Bon, so we take six students - you walk in ze space, proud, like with the neutral mask, and when I call your name, you speak the text ("the death of Hector" from Homer's 'Illiad') But with voice of actor, not "neurgh neurgh nah nah" Bon.

You all sit down immediately. Thank you for this horrible group.

(this is a compliment - at least most of us got to the end of the first sentence, one girl only got two words before BANG!)

Bon, now you sit down here - the horrible little table please! and a chair! and a glass!

Bon, so (A student sits in the chair awaiting instruction - for we the spectators it is like watching a good friend walking slowly to the gallows) So, you speak again about the death of Hektor - but now, you were his friend, and today is the anniversary of his death: every year you come and drink two, three glasses and remember him. There is a girl here in the cafe who you want to go to bed with. Who?...Bon, so you look at Susanna now and then like you want to go to bed with her. Attention...

(He gets to line four)

BANG! Stop! But he is communist no? There was no warmth about your dead friend, it was like you speak to the communist party. Thank you. Alors, Who?

(fuck it, I think, no girls have had a go yet - i learnt the text over the weekend - it's now or never...I stare into my wine glass and think about lovely Hektor and how he died in battle; I try to use the stylistic 'RSC' voice he has requested of me for Greek Tragedy...I get to the penultimate line! It has worked! Wow!)

Bon, next we do another exercise. I need a woman, not total idiot. Ah... (he looks at me - Shit!) Madame Stiff (I get up) She is l'alcoolique, but when she is not full of wine, she is quite intelligent. Bon, remove the table. So, place your leg up on the chair like a seducer (I do, and feel vulnerable, my eyes roll ceilingward and people laugh) You know Mae West, she said, I don't know how it is in English 'you are pleased to see me or is that a gun in your pocket?' Bon, so you say that in the style of Mae West. Attention:

('Is that a gun in your pocket? Or are you just pleased to see me? I say all seductive, husky and slow)

Bon, so now you say the text like this:

(I speak the text: it was wonderful, and fun, and I had the spectators, and Gaullier let me finish the whole text!)

It's much more interesting like ziz non?

(I have to inform you of one piece of information, dear reader, Gaullier always says to students after they have been bad 'you get a zero' sometimes 'a double zero' - but never has the figure been ANYTHING else but ZERO)

Bon madame Stiff. You get a seven.

(Everyone 'oohs')

Oh, happiness is a cigar called Gaullier

The Neutral Mask reaches its end

This was the best pineapple I had ever eaten. Juicy, sharp but sweet, fully cored by the ever-so-friendly greengrocer in Sceaux. All that remains now is the core and the base, which look like a toddler's sword.

Yesterday, for the first time, I was bored in class. GASP! QUEL HORREUR?! BAH NON! Bah oui mes petits amis, je me suis ennui. I was frustrated because for the whole week we had been 'doing' animals: from Penguin to chicken, from tortoise to crocodile, and I was BORED. Philippe just read out a list of animals and we had three minutes to search for/discover/explore/challenge this animal rhythm and from it find a character - only to be told "ah, not so bad" or "totally boring, sit down immediately." It's not enough! Well, I thought, this is not teaching - my niece Abi could be shouting out animals for me to imitate. It's just not enough! Philippe your methods are tired! Where is the expoloration? But oh! Philippe is so clever. He was trying to grind us towards crisis: I fretted all night with my anger and decided the best way to combat the situation was to think 'maybe it's me' and to try and attack the class today, (i'm trying a new mantra - it's something about acting positively, don't ask) to just throw myself into whatever we were doing, so that even if what I did was rubbish, it wouldn't be boring - clearly these thoughts had been provoked in my fellow classmates: the energy in the class today was amazing.

Today Philippe asked us to explore colours from behind the neutral mask: What is Blue? How is Purple? Philippe also wanted to explore which languages of the classroom had the best words for each colour. So, as a group in neutral mask were 'doing' blue, the spectators would call out their respective word for blue to see which matched the rhythm of the masks. 'Bleu' said the Frenchman, 'Azoras' said the Portuguese and we would discuss which word fitted best the colour. Blue is without doubt the portugese 'Azul', yellow is best in italian: 'giallo,' and 'red' we decided was best in English.

Then we formed opposing choruses (please advise on latin conjugation - chorae?) of colour. We played red versus blue, brown against orange, it was fascinating to see the contrast of the different colour rhythms and how the rhythms could be altered yet maintained to communicate a given task. Philippe finished the class ten minutes early, he said we were beautiful. "I don't want to do more now. It is best to leave with this beauty in our heads. If the others go now it might be shitty and I don't want that in my head." Ah, when you speak like zis Phil, I am week in ze nees...

Wow. What a week it has been: This week we continued to play with being different elements and substances through the neutral mask. In the last ten days I have been: Glue, oil (trucker), oil (boiling chip fat), vinegar, hydrochloric acid, glass, steel, elastic, paper, silk and a tree. To say it has been tiring would be an understatement.

Oftentimes Philippe will take you through a microcosm of creation in minutes (no slow exploration in this school) - you start as the element in neutral mask, and if he feels you are grasping the element well he will remove the mask, if you are still coping, he will command you to speak text, and then, if you are finding character from the element he will ask you to do a cabaret number (a song, speech) as that character. One of my favourite elements to expore was Oil - the thick black oil from a trucker's engine: it is thick and slow and lazy but it also has deep impulses which radiate from the centre out to all its volume. It was delicious. With Oil, I found a nice character - she was slumped and perhaps a little retarted, and she sang "I feel pretty" from West Side Story with a very lazy mouth. Everyone laughed and Philippe said afterwards "Bon, so we love your humour."

Vinegar I found very difficult - it is a light fluid, but also acidic - but the next rung on the ladder was Hydrochloric acid, which was madly exciting: It is frantic and thrives on consumption and destruction, so we had a lot of wild movement and energy. Philippe explained that the energy of Hydrochloric acid is an excellent one for Bouffon. When he had a group of good Hydrochlorics he asked them to move upstage whilst looking at the audience and laughing - the energy of all these maniac laughters was like watching a pack of hyena or cackling witches - it was lovely. Philippe then commanded that the group act as chorus and choryphae (the chorus leader who speaks a text, and commands the others) It was a wonderful insight into the menacing joy of the bouffon.

On Friday morning we were doing yoga in our morning movement class with our wonderful new teacher Juan. Juan is a graduate (and favourite) of the school and he has been trying to prepare our voices and bodies for Greek Tragedy which will be our demanding next module. We have been aclimatising ourselves to speaking at full pitch whilst running and jumping and moving etc, in order to strengthen our vocal resevoir. It was a great pleasure for me to move away from the ridiculous handstands and cartwheels and back to lovely voicework, and I trust Juan immensely. He is very passionate about his craft and takes time to work with individual needs. Towards the end of the class, I pulled a muscle in my neck: it didn't feel like a regular pulled muscle, it felt more as if I had 'pulled a bone.' It wasn't that painful, but I just started crying. I couldn't control it - I tried, but each time I managed to stop the tears, they began to well up again. It was bizarre. The pain ran from the base of my skull at the back of my neck, down through the centre of my throat to my voice box. Juan spent twenty minutes after the class stretching out the vertabrae in my neck, trying to shake the tension from the muscles out through my arms and legs - but still the shooting pain was there. I tried to show him where the pain was in my neck and he said "have you ever had an infection?" "Yes," I said "three years ago, and I worked through it and did great damage to my voice." He could feel the emotional block still in the glands of my throat. "If you have a friend here, you should go and cry for maybe two hours - but you must get it out." Bloody hell, I thought, how peculiar and amazing that the body should hold a physical memory of emotion like that. When I damaged my voice in 2004, it was the most terrifying period of my career, and I have carried that emotion around with me in my throat: since then I have thought about protecting my voice continuously and also taken great pains to conceal my worries by rolling them into a tight little ball somewhere between my throat and my sternum. And it's still there! It has grown strong! It is a knotted cyst of tears! Hopefully this is the beginning of my recovery. I think for most people their crisis will come in Philippe's class with how to be beautiful on stage, but for me it is the opposite (and, lest I forget, the reason I came to Paris) I have encountered my first crisis in the body that stands between me and complete expressive liberty. Sorry mummy, but 'fucking hell;' what a week.

Our homework this weekend was to find an animal and study it, to present on monday to the class. Yesterday I went to the Paris zoo to commune with the animals. Firstly, because of the strikes here it took about three hours to get there, which was a pain, and then when we arrived it was pretty depressing - poor conditions for the animals, and it has been so cold in Paris this week that all the creatures seemed really sad. Anyway, I managed to find great affinity with a group of little penguins. They are so fool-hardy and cocky, but really very silly and ungainly. i love them! So for the rest of the day I will be waddling around my little room trying to connect with my inner penguin. Last night I went to the Marais, and I have decided that this is definately my favourite area of Paris. Oh the tiny bookshop/bars and windy streets and even (Lo and behold!) vegetarian bistros! It is beautiful there and it feels like my ideal of Paris that I have carried around for so long.

Bienvenue Guillaume

This has been my face for the last two weeks. I have been 'sans internet' as we say in France, because the inconsiderate prick from whom I had been stealing free internet "Guillaume," went away. Well, hail Caesar, the prodigal son has returned: so here we are.

First a quick recap to get you up to speed: I watched the final of the Rugby World Cup under the Eiffel Tower, drinking a can of beer with about a million other English people - It was horrible, I like neither large numbers of people, Sports, or the English - but the atmosphere was amazing, and the Eiffel tower was lit up beautifully like a christmas tree. The next day I met up with Adam Brace - a friend from home - and I realised how difficult it is to all the time be a stranger, how simply wonderful it was to sit with someone who I knew, and with whom I didn't have to justify myself moment by moment. We finsihed the first module at school last week, some people went home which was sad, some people are still here... And last weekend I went home to London. Ah! What bliss! I saw Ben for two whole days, my lovely parents came up for Sunday Lunch and then I got back to Paris in time for class on Monday and was completely exhausted. Right, boring catch up over.

This week at school has seen the beginning of the second workshop "neutral mask" or in french "neutre masque" - someone phone Berlitz, i'm teaching new insights here. I was really looking forward to neutral mask; "Le Jeu" had been great fun, but it was an introduction to the game of theatre - i didn't feel like it really had me confronting my bad habits and/or weaknesses; entrez le masque. It excited me and terrified me - for the first few days I found it quite difficult to volunteer to go up - I felt like the art of moving behind a mask was one totally alien to me, and I wanted to understand it a little before I waded in. NON TIFFANY! ZERE YOU GO AGAIN: ZINKING FIRST, ZEN ACTING. STOP INTELLECTUALIZING! ZIZ IS WHY YOU ARE IN PARIS! Of course, Gaullier's school is not the place where you slowly learn and study your craft, before honing it infront of an audience. Non: ere, you just get on and do it, and you'll be killed time after boring time until one day Gaullier says "not so bad."

This week we have to find our element. That's right. Our element. Yesterday we explored water, both the still water of a mountain lake, and also the babbling clear water from a spring. Gaullier said I was "not so bad," but that I 'draw' too much - I think he meant that I was trying to portray too much, instead of just being ( I think it comes from the old ballet training, too much shape in the wrists/ankles) He took to refering to me as "the picasso/matisse of the class" which, as Gaullier insults go, left my classmates reeling. Today we had to be fire. Now, I know what some of you are thinking, "Tiff, you are literally the last person I know (apart maybe from the aforementioned Adam Brace / Richard Hurst) to embrace an exercise where your instruction was simply to move as fire...Wouldn't you raise an eyebrow? Dissappear for a cigarette? Mumble something about T S Eliot whilst raising a sarcastic eyebrow?" Yes, but this is WHY i'm here. It was today at 2.13, in a small rehersal room in Sceaux that my inbuilt cynicism started having heart palpitations. My little kitten of cynicism I had nurtured so carefully for twenty-six years: "What the hell are you doing? You're getting up first? You're actually volunteering to go and flail about like some modern interpretive dance act imitating fire? You twat." But I did anyway. "Madame Stiff" (the most enduring epithet, sometimes followed with 'Rosbif' "Ha Ha! Stiff le Rosbif, it's a joke! I like it! BANG!") "Madame Stiff, not so bad. But you use too much your arms - the rest of your body is dead"

My cynicism is laughing now, like a drain, or like Gaullier after he has thought up a joke in situ. "HA HA HA" it says "I fucking told you, throwing yourself about like that, what a twat." But do you know what I did? I did it again. I got up and did it again, and this time I was determined to feel the fire throughout my body. ( I am telling this charming story of me vs my cynicism as if there is to be a triumphant victory of innocence and spirit over cynicism, for any of you out there of a sensitive disposition who are praying nightly for this redemption of my spirit (mummy) - so that the dissappointment not be too overwhelming, i must tell you now this is not the case) I went for it! I was out of control! When he banged his drum (during an exercise it means you must speak text) "The Raven itself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements" Oh I felt like I was on fire. I spoke, and it was like the demons were eating Lady Macbeth from the inside - out. Ooh yeah! This is what it's all about! I am an actor! And then I realised that I had become totally lightheaded and couldn't really understand where I was on the planet, let alone in the room. So i had to lie down very still, and slowly drink some water, while the little voices in my head were quietly gloating.

No-one in class knew of my funny turn. I probably looked like a really pretentious wanker, who felt they had 'spent' themselves to such an incredible extent they needed to rest while the muse left them. Really it made me feel like a whirling dervish, and it made me realise how it is possible to work oneself into quite an extra-physical experience. I couldn't help thinking of churches out near the Mississippi. HA! I voluntarilly wrote the word Mississippi! I wonder if I know how to spell it. Any ammendments gratefully received. A plus tard mes amis, we've still got water and earth to come...

The big guns arrive

I have a cold. I am full of cold. Totally chilly. I blame it on the Spaniard from Madrid who I would call Jose as a pseudonym, except that Jose is his real name, so i'll call him Ted. I think in many ways feeling a little grumpy is the best way to approach 'Le Jeu' - hitherto I had been TRYING to play and TRYING to play energetically, but I must remember to play honestly: It's very easy to get carried away with trying to impress Phil. Being such a wanker about it, i'm trying to say that I am relaxing into the class.

It is the beginning of the class. "Bon...So...So...We start!...Bon...So....So...We start the class" It seems that Philippe will continue this way merely stating the opening of the class, so I stick my hand up "Yes?" and I say "Can I be the Queen?" "The Queen of where?" "Of Namibia?" "Of Namibia? Yes! Everyone behind the Queen of Namibia" and we began to play 'Balthazar says.' Someone asked me for a kiss and instead of speaking quietly I sang out (in the style of Dan Lewis) "No way!" I am beginning to play. Hurrah.

After we play 'Balthazar says' we play a game called 'Mr Hit' and the game itself is great, but not worth noting here. I should have mentioned the protocol surrounding it before as it is pure Gaullier magic: Once we have gathered in a circle to play 'Mr Hit,' Gaullier pretends to make a phone call into his hand. "Allo?" he says, a look of inquiry dancing all the way through him "Allo? Stani? Stani! It's Phil! Philippe...Philippe Gaulier...non Gau-lli-er. Ah bon, so Stani we're going to play Mr Hit now, ok? Ok, say hi to Slavski, ok bye Stani. Au revoir!" That's right this wonderful playful-grumpy old man is pretending to phone Stanislavsky! To ask his permission to play a stupid game! HA. I love him!

After the games, we move to the exercises. Well, up to now i'd been enjoying studying with Gaullier, but I was beginning to feel a little dissappointed: Come on Phil! This insulting is fun, but where's the gore? I want blood! And sure enough, today Philippe pulled out the big guns. That's right, dear reader: I'm talking, in-depth personal confrontation.

We were doing an exercise on Major/Minor (i.e. of two people on stage at any one moment, one will be the focus, and one will be the support - think Laurel/Hardy)- a group of us are in the space and one person holds a tennis ball, the tennis ball represents the Major, and the ball (and therefore Major) is passed from person to person within the group. Philippe asked us, when we received the ball and passed into Major, to speak to "Mam, Dad, your boyfriend...whoever" and tell them "look at me! I am in Sceaux, in Paris! I am in Major!" etc etc.

The first tears of the course were shed when a very lovely oriental girl. (The ethereally beautiful one from blog 2) took the Major ball. She spoke, I've no idea what she said because she spoke in Mandarin, but it sounded beautiful - I could feel every male heart in the room heave a little sigh of desire - "Stop!" cries Philippe. "They have fish sellers in Hong Kong? Yes? Fruit Vegetable sellers? Speak like them" She tries "No! NO! NO! Louder!" Again she tries "LOUDER!" she continues to try, but there is palpable expectation in the air that Philippe is not going to give this one up until he's really done with her. "You are too well educated. Someone get some water" Everyone looks around, 'water?' 'why the...?' We were soon to find out. "Poor some water on her head. MORE! Now, mess up her hair. MORE." He looks to her "Ah, now you are thinking 'fuck you Philippe' yes? Now, the fish seller." He carried on trying to provoke her until they were there eye-to-eye Philippe growling "fuck you" and her, in tears "fuck. you." OOh it was FUN!!!

This continued and every person who tried was given simillar deconstruction. I, sadly, did not get a turn. During another person's "lesson" he asked for a female to work with him, and (due to the cold) I volunteered. He asked us to stand side-by-side at the end of the room and walk as if we were walking to the funeral of Princess Diana (I laughed - this is not what he meant) So we were to walk upright and with a clear "fixed point" while he played the National Anthem on his ipod. We did. "There is a difference in education here. Yes? You madame, you are very sophisticated. You monsieur, not so much. Go back, and do it exactly the same but this time with text. Madame you first." As we were walking back to the wall (because I am a wanker) all I could think of was Prufrock by Elliot (I think it's the only thing I can recite for as long as five minutes) so I did that. "Very Good madame. Zat was very good." HA! VERY GOOD? VERY GOOD! My partner then went and Philippe told him he was boring, and he said again "But madam, very well done." OHHH I am so chuffed! I have to admit that this exercise is on my territory - I can focus and speak slowly with a nice, poised voice - when it comes to bouffon/clown/mask (the rest of the course) I will be back to good old 'fucking boring.'

I will tell you of one amazing exercise more. Philippe was talking to us about 'hearing the echo' of your words - whether with the audience or a chorus etc. When one girl caught the ball and became Major, Philippe told her she had no joy: He told her to sit on a chair the other side of the room to us. He told her to move only when really compelled to. We sat at the other end of the room calling "Come!" "Come Nelly!" "Come!" She was drawn to us with a beautiful expression - she was, as Philippe would say "showing us her beauty."

Oh Philippe!

Jesus! Jesus Christ! Philippe said I was "not so bad." I couldn't believe it, I almost wet my pants.

It was Friday afternoon and I was just having my first negative spell - could I really put up with the insults for a whole year? had I been fooling myself thinking I could cope? Was this really the right place for me? Philippe had been in characteristicaly vitriolic mood, although he declared at the beginning of Friday's session that he is not so mean to people on Fridays - it makes for a bad weekend. I didn't see any evidence of this leniancy - but maybe I will only get, (I hasten to say 'compliments', so rather) non-insults from Philippe on Fridays.

I jumped up to demonstrate the new exercise with a girl from Hong Kong. This girl is ethereally beautiful, she has one of those oriental faces that seem to radiate thousands of years of wisdom and peace. "So..." says Philippe, and I'm just thinking, come on you bastard - do your worst, "here we have two women who are both very...very..." he hesitates looking around the room "both very charming" ('fucking hell' I think, 'that's a compliment. Where's the joke?') One of them is slightly more charming than the other. I won't give a name, but so." Ha Ha Ha. We did the exercise (which was about using your voice in major, whilst playing a game) and he says "but you, you were not so bad. Quite surprising eh? Well done Madame" and I did a fucking curtsey. That's right.

We had a party on friday night for all the first years. We gathered in a bar near Gar de L'est - not one of the most picturesque areas of Paris - and we drank and talked and people danced. This is a boring account and I only record the event because I so impressed myself by managing to find a nightbus home on my own! I had to walk to Chatelet (30 mins south of gare de l'est) and find bus number N21 - I still can't believe I managed it. So I sat listening to Bob Dylan at 3.30 in the morning on le noctambus N21.

Life begins at Gaulier

I have just finished my third day of study at l'ecole Philippe Gaulier. I have yet not stopped wondering just what exactly is going on. I'm in Paris! In bloody France! Paying to learn from a man who is clearly mad as a box of frogs!

The morning sessions are straightforward enough - it is the movement class, led by a very sweet and convivial Argentinian called Martin (sounds like Martine) we play and exercise and are beginning to learn the art of controlling the body. Afternoons are with Philippe and it is like no workshop environment i have ever encountered. Philippe always wears a hat and his tiny red spectacles are always perched in the middle of his face. He holds a drum on which he beats to punctuate his class. BANG! "You shut up now!" We begin each session with a game called "Bartholomew says" which is a version of 'Simon says.' BANG! "Who wants to be king?" and someone volunteers, everyone else follows behind the king as Bartholomew begins to shout his orders "Bartholomew says run. BANG" From this moment we are just a group of people running around - the entire concept of the king and us running behind as his subjects is totally lost - another moment of total absurdity in the Gaulier classroom - and we continue to play 'simon says.' "BANG! Stop running now! Nooooo there was no Bartholomew says - who stopped? Put your hands up if you stopped! Ah. What do you want?"

This is the part of the game where the running around stops and punishment must be dealt out to those who disobeyed Bartholomew. Philippe asks what you want and you have the following options as reply:
1. Nothing
2. A Kiss
3. Two nothings and a kiss
4. A kiss and four nothings
5. Four nothings and two kisses

The explanations of these are as follows:
1. Nothing - you want nothing, Philippe says 'bon': it is over
2. A kiss - you have to ask someone in the room if they will let you kiss them. If they say yes - then voila! you get to peck them on the cheek. However, if they say no, you must go to Gaulier. Gaulier puts down his drum, wrenches your arm up behind your back and bends you double, so that you wince with pain, then carries out a sequence of torture on you: shampoo (ruffles your skull) guillotine (chops the back of your neck) acupuncture (pinches the flesh on your shoulders) and then Le Pen in Algeria/Guantanamo (grabs your little finger and bends it backwards) Sometimes you get a chinese burn, then you're done.
3. 4. 5. etc etc Two nothings and a kiss - well, two times nothing is still nothing but you want a kiss aswell. Gaulier says you chose the nothings+kiss options if you "are not so confident about your body, if you think people may not kiss you."

Gaullier is funnier than I could have imagined. The rest of the afternoon consists of people doing exercises to the class (15%of the total time) and Philippe discussing if they were so boring we should kill them and how we should do it (85% of the time). For example, he stops a couple and says "so, that was totally boring. That was the most boring day of my life - maybe not the most boring but right up there. What do we think students? Do we think that we love these two, that these two are actors? Or do we think that they should be pharmacist in Sceaux? You go to the pharmacy in Sceaux, you will see, they are fucking boring. So maybe they are pharmacists and we set fire to the pharmacy? What do you think Roger?" Everyone replies that they are boring and that we should kill them - but everytime he says something funnier and more imaginative; i look around at my fellow students gazing upwards adoringly at this fountain, this rock of humour and spirit. He's phenomenal. He speaks slowly and definately. I did an exercise with another girl, and at the end he said: " That was totally boring. you two are totally boring. What do we think class? If these two were primary school teachers, do you think you would learn more, or do you think you burn down the school?

I have no idea what he wants - I guess that he wants us to show imagination, fun and pleasure - but as yet i don't know how to show him those things. It seems that he is creating an environment of silliness and disregard in which we will eventually be able to be free in our playing, but as yet it's a little like sitting with Derek and Clive in the pub, except 'Derek and Clive' are the most interesting, funny and warm old French man I have ever met.