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

[ad_1] <img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1600x1200+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fcd%2F99%2F404d98584dc79a5f38bc80eef4e0%2Fwhatsapp-image-2026-01-02-at-12-50-26-am-7.jpeg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1600x1200+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fcd%2F99%2F404d98584dc79a5f38bc80eef4e0%2Fwhatsapp-image-2026-01-02-at-12-50-26-am-7.jpeg" class="img" alt="From left: Gaulier students Alayna Perry, Brian Byrne and Joseph Bucci receive feedback on a short skit involving a pie in the face." fetchpriority="high"/> From left: Gaulier college students Alayna Perry, Brian Byrne and Joseph Bucci obtain suggestions on a brief skit involving a pie within the face. Rebecca Rosman for NPR cover caption

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Rebecca Rosman for NPR ÉTAMPES, France — The person in management tonight is known as Carlo Jacucci. You are on the stage. He is the viewers. And there is virtually no likelihood you are going to please him — which, one way or the other, is strictly why you are right here.

"The video games start," Jacucci, a matter-of-fact Franco-Italian, tells his college students, then faucets a drum between his legs.

The stage lights go vivid. The music begins. A bunch of red-nosed clowns in numerous costumes begins a ritual that has been the heartbeat of this place for greater than 40 years.

<img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1350x1800+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F3e%2F3e%2Ffb1e2c2d40f7b9fc16311db0b75e%2Fstamptown-edinburgh-fringe-2025-by-jacinta-oaten-5.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1350x1800+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F3e%2F3e%2Ffb1e2c2d40f7b9fc16311db0b75e%2Fstamptown-edinburgh-fringe-2025-by-jacinta-oaten-5.jpg" class="img" alt="Photo by Jacinta Oaten" loading="lazy"/> Zach Zucker performs in Stamptown on the Fringe competition in Edinburgh, Scotland, in August final yr. Zucker studied at France's École Philippe Gaulier and his touring selection present leans into the varsity's philosophy. Jacinta Oaten cover caption

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Jacinta Oaten That is the École Philippe Gaulier, a faculty named after its founder, a instructor who believed comedy and clowning start not with jokes, however with the pleasure of being ridiculous. Or, as Gaulier calls it, discovering "your fool."

Medical doctors, monks, actors — they arrive from everywhere in the world to review this philosophy within the in any other case sleepy village of Étampes, about an hour's prepare trip south of Paris. The loudest noises after sunset come from a room filled with English audio system studying to fall on their faces.

A stroke in 2023 compelled Gaulier, now in his early 80s, to retire from instructing full time. However the faculty nonetheless runs on the system he constructed — carried on by the lecturers he educated — shaping each train, each critique and nervous pupil hoping for amusing.

College students like Brazilian actress Gabriela Flarys. She's standing on the stage in an oversize frilly orange-and-white flamenco costume, prompting Jacucci to nickname her "orange broccoli."

Flarys' act shouldn't be going properly. Her stage companions are a person dressed as a Roman warrior and one other as a mariachi with an oversize sombrero. The premise entails a love triangle.

<img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1350x1800+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F91%2F06%2F1b3640b24f1a9a18c39ca195a887%2Fstamptown-edinburgh-fringe-2025-by-jacinta-oaten-4.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1350x1800+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F91%2F06%2F1b3640b24f1a9a18c39ca195a887%2Fstamptown-edinburgh-fringe-2025-by-jacinta-oaten-4.jpg" class="img" alt="Photo by Jacinta Oaten" loading="lazy"/> Members of the Stamptown ensemble carry out on the Fringe competition in Edinburgh, Scotland, in August 2025. The present's ringmaster is Zach Zucker, an alum of France's École Philippe Gaulier. Jacinta Oaten cover caption

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Jacinta Oaten "Welcome everybody to the worst second of the category," Jacucci says flatly. "We reached it."

The trio stares again at him. They're confused. Ashamed.

The worst second has a reputation right here — le flop. It is the half everybody dreads, when you may really feel your crimson nostril start to droop because the lifeless air fills the room. Nevertheless it's additionally the place the true work begins.

Jacucci singles out Flarys. She wants extra emotion. He tells her to get offended at him. What occurs subsequent feels virtually like an exorcism.

"Carlo!" she shrieks, shouting Jacucci's first identify. "I am pissed off!"

She will get louder. And louder. Till one thing breaks free. Then she calms down.

"Wait," she tells the group, then picks up a shaving cream pie and throws it on the mariachi's face.

The room laughs along with her. Even Jacucci seems surprised.

"Me, I'm shocked," he says. "I did not know you may change."

Painful but in addition refreshing

<img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1600x1200+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fa9%2F86%2F1f58c7c24c37ba26a15281f54c0f%2Fwhatsapp-image-2026-01-02-at-12-50-26-am-2.jpeg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1600x1200+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fa9%2F86%2F1f58c7c24c37ba26a15281f54c0f%2Fwhatsapp-image-2026-01-02-at-12-50-26-am-2.jpeg" class="img" alt="" loading="lazy"/> Pupil Tufan Nadjafi attire as bullfighter throughout class at École Philippe Gaulier in Étampes, France. Well-known alums of the varsity embrace actors Sacha Baron Cohen, Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham Carter. Rebecca Rosman for NPR cover caption

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Rebecca Rosman for NPR Educating is Jacucci's second act.

A longtime performer, he first got here to Gaulier as a pupil many years in the past. He says he discovered the expertise painful — but in addition refreshing.

"[Gaulier] had no drawback telling me the reality of what he noticed," he says.

"I felt instantly that this can be a work that means that you can progress, since you face your limitations."

Gaulier's technique has produced an unlikely record of alumni: together with actors Rachel Weisz and Emma Thompson, each Oscar winners, and Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen.

A brand new era can also be rising.

A decade in the past, Zach Zucker was working for Baron Cohen's manufacturing firm in Los Angeles when Gaulier got here to city to do a workshop. Zucker signed up.

"And 5 minutes in, I noticed Philippe work his magic, and I simply couldn't consider what I used to be watching," Zucker says.

Zucker had educated in American improv faculties, together with Second Metropolis and Upright Residents Brigade. However this felt totally different. Different locations train you succeed. Gaulier, he says, was instructing folks fail.

"Everybody's good at being good," Zucker says. "However in case you may be good at being dangerous, then nothing is dangerous — and it is really extra fulfilling."

Zucker ultimately moved to Étampes, the place he studied below Gaulier for 2 years.

As we speak he's the ringmaster of Stamptown, a touring vaudeville present that leans closely into the Gaulier philosophy. His alter ego, Jack Tucker, repeatedly bombs on stage — and folds the failure into part of the act.

It is a schtick that is catching on — the present will air its first Netflix particular later this yr.

Julia Masli signed up for the varsity a decade in the past after studying there was no audition course of.

"So right away I signed up and that was mainly my solely training," she says.

In her one-woman present, Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!, Masli invitations the viewers to share their issues, which she then helps resolve in actual time. The present turned a breakout hit on the Edinburgh Fringe competition.

Regardless of her success, Masli admits she spent years struggling to get amusing. Gaulier's brutal coaching helped her put together for that.

She remembers telling him she was from Estonia.

"He saved saying it is a very grey nation, and there is no one humorous there," she remembers.

<img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1600x1200+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fa5%2Ff8%2F717e31ec42b982f8e0f7be00c58c%2Fwhatsapp-image-2026-01-02-at-12-50-26-am-1.jpeg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1600x1200+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fa5%2Ff8%2F717e31ec42b982f8e0f7be00c58c%2Fwhatsapp-image-2026-01-02-at-12-50-26-am-1.jpeg" class="img" alt="" loading="lazy"/> Based in 1980, the École Philippe Gaulier has gained a fame for instructing college students fail — and preserve going. Rebecca Rosman for NPR cover caption

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Rebecca Rosman for NPR Masli rapidly discovered her instructor would by no means accept something lower than good.

The pleasure to be ridiculous

Gaulier was born in Nazi-occupied Paris in 1943. He educated to be a critical actor, however seen that at any time when he appeared on stage, audiences laughed.

Gaulier went on to review and later work with the mime instructor Jacques Lecoq. In 1980, Gaulier based his personal faculty, which has had stints in Paris, London, and for the previous 15 years, in Étampes.

That does not imply everyone seems to be made for this work.

"This pleasure to be ridiculous … to have a particular humor … it is given to some folks," Gaulier advised the BBC in 2015. "However not many."

Michiko Miyazaki Gaulier, his spouse and former pupil, now runs the varsity's day-to-day operations, retaining the schedule — and the Gaulier technique — on observe. She guarantees everybody leaves with one thing.

"Folks come right here to vary," she says. "Perhaps they do not know what — however they need to change."

Again inside Jacucci's classroom, college students are nonetheless determining what that change seems like.

After class, Frank Benson, the Roman warrior, remains to be catching his breath.

"It was powerful at this time," says Benson, who got here from Australia to review right here. "Generally you go on the market and it flops actually exhausting, and it isn't so enjoyable."

However, he says, he is getting used to it. The frustration passes quicker now.

In one other nook of the room, Flarys, aka orange broccoli, is wiping the sweat off her face.

She has a confession: That is really her third stint on the faculty. Even with over 15 years of expertise performing, there's one thing that retains her coming again right here.