Thursdays

I don't know what it is about Thursday nights, but for some ridiculous reason more often than not I find myself, at the point of exhaustion after two heavy nights at school wildly trying to be creative, (and failing), bent over my computer and blogging away. Perhaps it's just that my brain is so dead it has nothing else to give, or it's some kind of sick release. Whatever, here I go again.

Tonight I receive inspiration from two quarters. One: the mundane - strawberry jam on white bread. (My five-slices-a-morning father would be proud.) In fact I am involved in a rather unfortunate sugar kick at the moment. As the term goes on my abilty to a) exercise and b) resist the contents on boulangeries deteriorates.

My other muse comes in the form of a very amusing entry on 'mime this' about being tortured in class by Gaulier. (You see what a generous hearted blogger I am, recommending other blogs and praising their contents. How could you even suggest that I wouldn't be the easiest person in the world to work with in autocours? No? - my mouth hardly even knows how to form the word. Honestly. Ask anyone.)

Jennifer says this about le Jeu, the first in the series of month long course you do in the year at Gaulier (and I hope she will excuse me for cut and pasting!)

"Here we try to abandon our 'shitty ideas with their sell-by dates which give rabbit fart pleasure'’ and learn about the importance of breaking the audience's watches, not their balls. One day I come to class and am asked to save my life after losing a game of musical chairs by snorting like an elephant who hasn'’t had sex for forty years and who has just burst into a brothel. Another week I am in a cabaret bar singing Ella Fitzgerald whilst intermittently being asked to raise my eyes to the heavens and calmly recite 'Mummy, Daddy, look at me, I am onstage and I am fucking boring'."

So, as we all know, Gaulier used to teach at Lecoq about 30 years ago and then he left having had, or causing, a big row with Lecoq. As a shameful conspiracy theorist, I came up with the idea that the argument came about because when he left, P.G knicked two of the neutral masks.

When we started working with the masks Jin Wu told us that there had been 20 but that two had... and at this point he did miniature arm-flapping, which I took to mean that the masks had got broken and gone off to happy mask heaven. Then a friend at Gaulier said that they had two brown leather masks, one male, one female and that all the rest were white plastic copies of those. Aha! I thought, he knicked them, he stole the masks!! If anyone at Gaulier could let me know if they have Antonio Sartori written inside I would be very happy to know, as that would solve the riddle.

So my theory was that Gaulier had taken two of the masks when he left and that was why they not only didn't speak, but G actually moved to London until after Lecoq died and now doesn't say Lecoq's name to his students, but refers disparidgingly to, 'that other school I used to teach at, I can't remember eet's name. Chicken? Duck?' etc. etc.

My friend who studied at Lecoq 30 years ago disagrees. She says that Lecoq was such a power freak that just leaving the school where he held all his teachers under his control would have been enough to spark off the argument.

So now there are these two schools, very similar, very, very different, both in Paris. They do a similar curriculum - neutral mask, Greek tragedy, clown, buffoon - but in one year rather than two, and split into courses, so you don't have to do all of it if you don't want. Most of our teachers will have been taught and very influenced by Gaulier. Last year, while G was ill, Joss did some moonlighting teaching classes there.

Similar too is the acerbic teaching style, though none of our teachers are as rude as Gaulier. There's someone there at the moment who was in my class last year who was incredibly camp, but not gay. I was convinced he was gay. I'm still convinced he's gay, but I've never said so to his face, and I am known for my great lack of tack. In fact I have told other men I think are gay that they are. (Oh, just give it time, I said to Big Max. Opps!)

Gaulier, however has no such reserve. 'You're gay!!' he yells each time N***** gets up to improvise. 'I am not, I am not!' N**** shouts back, flapping his wrists around camply. But, apparently, it has the desired effect and N****, through his anger, is able to escape his misguiding campness, if only for a few seconds.