Avignon Off 2011
Jul 9, 2011 20:03:40 GMT
Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2011 20:03:40 GMT
Day 0 -- July 7
Arrived in the city. The Off begins tomorrow. I got my official card and programme and watched a bit of the Off parade of performers on the main boulevard. That was all for today.
Day 1 -- July 8
The first day of the Off is a time of indecision and indulgence. All of the performers will be presenting their shows for the very first time to very few people in most cases. They will trip over the text, they will miss their marks. But I have been a spectator on the very first day twice before, and I know that I will support them as best I can, as will the other spectators (most of whom will be invited guests). So, here we go, and the morning is the most difficult time for everybody, because it is the worst time for any sort of show, and it is given to newcomers and people who have no influence in the business.
The performance periods are bought by the theatre companies at variable prices, and it is up to them to make money if possible -- they must do the ticket sales, the set up and removal of the decor, the lighting and the cleaning -- and of course the performance, usually within a 90 minute period.
10:00 Théâtre Laurette
6 spectators on bleachers, small theatre, 2 actors
Play: Jour d'Eté (Summer Day) by Slawomir Mrozek
For a Polish play, the theme seemed extremely Romanian to me. A middle-aged man is trying to commit suicide when he is interrupted by the arrival of a handsome young man who pays no attention to him.
When conversation is engaged, both are annoyed. The older man wants to kill himself because he has never succeeded in life. In love, work or anything else, he is a failure. The younger man finds this ridiculous, because he has always succeeded. Nothing is a challenge and he gets everything he wants. He came to the same place to kill himself.
They are jealous of each other: the older man of the success of the younger one, and the younger man because at least the older man has things to strive for.
The woman arrives, inevitably. She is attracted to both of them for completely different reasons. They each try to seduce her for completely different reasons. Each pretends that the other should take her, but each is annoyed the moment her attention goes to the other one.
Nobody dies, but nobody is happy. Life appears to be worth living anyway.
verdict: pretty good
------------
12:00 Le Palace
25 spectators in normal seats, cinema, 1 man show
Play: Baptiste Lecaplain, young stand up comedian
The temporarily coverted cinemas always go for the easiest shows, crowd pleasing comedies, magicians or stand up comics. I nevertheless try to see at least one such spectacle each year, made palatable by the fact that these people are usually playing in Paris for something like 35€ and I can see them in Avignon for 12€.
This guy was not unpleasant. I see his posters in the metro all the time, so I know that his success is growing. The stand up genre does not particularly attract me, and I am the absolutely anathema of the performers since I never laugh, even when they are very funny. When I am sitting very close to the front, as I obviously was in this 200 seat cinema, and I am afraid that I can be seen from the stage, I try to simulate laughter to be polite, but usually I forget.
The routine was the normal "modern life" routine jumping from subject to subject, but poor Baptiste was clearly destabilized because 1) like most stand-up comics he asks things like "how many people out there are single?" but it really falls flat in an empty house and 2) he has never performed at noon in his entire life and it was very difficult to adjust. He kept saying "tonight" because it came out automatically, and most of the time he didn't even catch himself. Other than that, his routine was no worse than any other such person.
I suffered for him as I have suffered for every single daytime stand-up comedian that I have seen over the years. The semi-stars get to perform at night to full houses and it is probably great, but I want to help these new people stuck in the early slot.
verdict: passing grade
-----------
14:00 Théâtre de l'Etincelle
15 spectators on plastic seats, small theatre, 2 actors
Play: Les Beautés Inutiles (Useless Beauties)
This was my first nod to classic texts, which I usually save for later. The play was based on several short stories by Guy de Maupassant, and it was beautifully done, although the actress stumbled over her text several times. Normal for a first performance. Maupassant was a great writer, so transposing his words to the stage is pretty easy -- stories of adultery, mistruths, secrets, usually for futile reasons and which always turn against the perpetrators.
One of the tragic tales was about a woman who borrows a diamond necklace from a wealthy friend to go to a fancy party for once in her life. She loses the necklace during the party (actually she threw it at me and I had to catch it), and she and her husband have to buy a replacement since they are mortified. They go deeply in debt, move into a hovel, do terrible exhausting jobs and it takes them 10 years to pay it off. Naturally, they have broken all contact with everybody that they know because they are so ashamed. They age twice as fast and look like shit. But one day, the woman runs into her former friend on the street who doesn't recognize her until she says who she is. "You look like shit," says her friend. She explains the tragic loss of the necklace and the difficulty of paying off the replacement. Anybody who has read O. Henry obviously knows that the final line is "but that necklace was a worthless fake."
It wasn't the intrigues that made this play worth it but the quality of the text.
verdict: quite good
------------
Obviously there was no way to keep up this rhythm, so I went back to the hotel for a nap. I had decided to see a late play in the suburb of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon where I had been cruelly rejected last year for not reserving ahead of time. Most of the plays in Villeneuve are performed by itinerant groups in tents or outdoors or in places like barns. I love it.
-----------
21:15 Colline des Mourgues
40 spectators, outdoor amphitheatre, 6 actors
Play: La Seconde Surprise de l'Amour (The Second Surprise of Love) by Marivaux, additions by Sophie Calle
I had been to this place once before. It's on a hill above Villeneuve and access is remarkably complicated with a very bad rocky path, far worse after the spectacle because you have to go back down in total darkness, because nothing is lit at all.
Anyway, the play was absolutely fantastic, but Marivaux usually is. The language is so incredibly delightful and remains 100% accessible almost 300 years later.
The play was performed in a sort of ambiguous time zone with the main characters starting out in period costume but some of the others almost contemporary. The set consisted of a structure of individual glass-fronted bathroom booths to which non performing characters retired when they were not in the scene.
As for the intrigue, it concerns a young woman in despair because her beloved husband died after one month of marriage. She is absolutely reveling in her unhappiness, to the disdain of her devoted servant. Meanwhile, the inevitable young man is in despair because he got dumped by his girlfriend and is unsuccessful at committing suicide, to the disdain of his faithful manservant. Obviously, the servants do things to set them up with each other, making lots of mistakes, and there is the count would would like to marry the woman and also the philosophy teacher who is in charge of the woman's reading matter (he thinks that any book that doesn't refer to Seneca is worthless contemporary pap).
As for the Sophie Calle additions, since she is a specialist on despair and unhappiness, there were recorded interludes of strange desperate voices, which didn't add a thing to Marivaux but did not at all ruin the ambience either.
In any case, everybody I overheard leaving the hill was saying, "I absolutely have to read that play."
verdict: fantastic
Arrived in the city. The Off begins tomorrow. I got my official card and programme and watched a bit of the Off parade of performers on the main boulevard. That was all for today.
Day 1 -- July 8
The first day of the Off is a time of indecision and indulgence. All of the performers will be presenting their shows for the very first time to very few people in most cases. They will trip over the text, they will miss their marks. But I have been a spectator on the very first day twice before, and I know that I will support them as best I can, as will the other spectators (most of whom will be invited guests). So, here we go, and the morning is the most difficult time for everybody, because it is the worst time for any sort of show, and it is given to newcomers and people who have no influence in the business.
The performance periods are bought by the theatre companies at variable prices, and it is up to them to make money if possible -- they must do the ticket sales, the set up and removal of the decor, the lighting and the cleaning -- and of course the performance, usually within a 90 minute period.
10:00 Théâtre Laurette
6 spectators on bleachers, small theatre, 2 actors
Play: Jour d'Eté (Summer Day) by Slawomir Mrozek
For a Polish play, the theme seemed extremely Romanian to me. A middle-aged man is trying to commit suicide when he is interrupted by the arrival of a handsome young man who pays no attention to him.
When conversation is engaged, both are annoyed. The older man wants to kill himself because he has never succeeded in life. In love, work or anything else, he is a failure. The younger man finds this ridiculous, because he has always succeeded. Nothing is a challenge and he gets everything he wants. He came to the same place to kill himself.
They are jealous of each other: the older man of the success of the younger one, and the younger man because at least the older man has things to strive for.
The woman arrives, inevitably. She is attracted to both of them for completely different reasons. They each try to seduce her for completely different reasons. Each pretends that the other should take her, but each is annoyed the moment her attention goes to the other one.
Nobody dies, but nobody is happy. Life appears to be worth living anyway.
verdict: pretty good
------------
12:00 Le Palace
25 spectators in normal seats, cinema, 1 man show
Play: Baptiste Lecaplain, young stand up comedian
The temporarily coverted cinemas always go for the easiest shows, crowd pleasing comedies, magicians or stand up comics. I nevertheless try to see at least one such spectacle each year, made palatable by the fact that these people are usually playing in Paris for something like 35€ and I can see them in Avignon for 12€.
This guy was not unpleasant. I see his posters in the metro all the time, so I know that his success is growing. The stand up genre does not particularly attract me, and I am the absolutely anathema of the performers since I never laugh, even when they are very funny. When I am sitting very close to the front, as I obviously was in this 200 seat cinema, and I am afraid that I can be seen from the stage, I try to simulate laughter to be polite, but usually I forget.
The routine was the normal "modern life" routine jumping from subject to subject, but poor Baptiste was clearly destabilized because 1) like most stand-up comics he asks things like "how many people out there are single?" but it really falls flat in an empty house and 2) he has never performed at noon in his entire life and it was very difficult to adjust. He kept saying "tonight" because it came out automatically, and most of the time he didn't even catch himself. Other than that, his routine was no worse than any other such person.
I suffered for him as I have suffered for every single daytime stand-up comedian that I have seen over the years. The semi-stars get to perform at night to full houses and it is probably great, but I want to help these new people stuck in the early slot.
verdict: passing grade
-----------
14:00 Théâtre de l'Etincelle
15 spectators on plastic seats, small theatre, 2 actors
Play: Les Beautés Inutiles (Useless Beauties)
This was my first nod to classic texts, which I usually save for later. The play was based on several short stories by Guy de Maupassant, and it was beautifully done, although the actress stumbled over her text several times. Normal for a first performance. Maupassant was a great writer, so transposing his words to the stage is pretty easy -- stories of adultery, mistruths, secrets, usually for futile reasons and which always turn against the perpetrators.
One of the tragic tales was about a woman who borrows a diamond necklace from a wealthy friend to go to a fancy party for once in her life. She loses the necklace during the party (actually she threw it at me and I had to catch it), and she and her husband have to buy a replacement since they are mortified. They go deeply in debt, move into a hovel, do terrible exhausting jobs and it takes them 10 years to pay it off. Naturally, they have broken all contact with everybody that they know because they are so ashamed. They age twice as fast and look like shit. But one day, the woman runs into her former friend on the street who doesn't recognize her until she says who she is. "You look like shit," says her friend. She explains the tragic loss of the necklace and the difficulty of paying off the replacement. Anybody who has read O. Henry obviously knows that the final line is "but that necklace was a worthless fake."
It wasn't the intrigues that made this play worth it but the quality of the text.
verdict: quite good
------------
Obviously there was no way to keep up this rhythm, so I went back to the hotel for a nap. I had decided to see a late play in the suburb of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon where I had been cruelly rejected last year for not reserving ahead of time. Most of the plays in Villeneuve are performed by itinerant groups in tents or outdoors or in places like barns. I love it.
-----------
21:15 Colline des Mourgues
40 spectators, outdoor amphitheatre, 6 actors
Play: La Seconde Surprise de l'Amour (The Second Surprise of Love) by Marivaux, additions by Sophie Calle
I had been to this place once before. It's on a hill above Villeneuve and access is remarkably complicated with a very bad rocky path, far worse after the spectacle because you have to go back down in total darkness, because nothing is lit at all.
Anyway, the play was absolutely fantastic, but Marivaux usually is. The language is so incredibly delightful and remains 100% accessible almost 300 years later.
The play was performed in a sort of ambiguous time zone with the main characters starting out in period costume but some of the others almost contemporary. The set consisted of a structure of individual glass-fronted bathroom booths to which non performing characters retired when they were not in the scene.
As for the intrigue, it concerns a young woman in despair because her beloved husband died after one month of marriage. She is absolutely reveling in her unhappiness, to the disdain of her devoted servant. Meanwhile, the inevitable young man is in despair because he got dumped by his girlfriend and is unsuccessful at committing suicide, to the disdain of his faithful manservant. Obviously, the servants do things to set them up with each other, making lots of mistakes, and there is the count would would like to marry the woman and also the philosophy teacher who is in charge of the woman's reading matter (he thinks that any book that doesn't refer to Seneca is worthless contemporary pap).
As for the Sophie Calle additions, since she is a specialist on despair and unhappiness, there were recorded interludes of strange desperate voices, which didn't add a thing to Marivaux but did not at all ruin the ambience either.
In any case, everybody I overheard leaving the hill was saying, "I absolutely have to read that play."
verdict: fantastic
