The Avignon Off reviews 2013
Jul 29, 2013 11:53:53 GMT
Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2013 11:53:53 GMT
Avignon Off 2013 – what I saw
1. The scheduled beginning of the « Off » was July 8th, but I arrived on the 7th and discovered that quite a few of the theatres were giving free performances that day, so at half past noon, I found myself at the Albatros on rue des Teinturiers for a performance of "To Be or Not to Be." This had absolutely nothing to do with Shakespeare but was instead a sort of joyous historical one-man conference about the history of theatre as seen through architecture.
This might not sound like the most interesting thing in the world, but it was excellent, and the actor had all sorts of wood blocks, arches, rectangles, etc., to show how things changed over the years. He in fact began with prehistoric cave paintings and extrapolated how the artist would act out the hunt to his friends while pointing at the images of animals and spears. He continued on to Greek plays in amphitheatres, passion plays, Elizabethan plays and the still extremely prevalent “Italian style” theatres with the balconies surrounding the stage and newer square configurations. It sounds boring, but it was really informative, for example when he said that thanks to Louis XIV, Paris had a grand total of 2 theatres, because the king was one of the only people who supported the theatre, when London already had almost 60.
To wrap up the show, the actor pointed out that theatre is one of the only things that has lasted for 10,000 years so it is really a lot more important than many people think it is.
I thought it was an excellent introduction to the festival. I always note the number of seats in these places and how many spectators, so: 49 seats, 49 spectators – kind of normal for a free performance.
However, after all of these years of going to Avignon, this is the very first time that I noticed how many of these little theatres have only 49 seats. There is obviously some sort of irritating (and probably expensive) regulation that begins with theatres having 50 seats and more. The Albatros is just a former storefront on a small street.
2. The next morning at 11 a.m. was “Le Cid” by Corneille at the Espace Roseau. 80 seats, 25 spectators. I think this used to be the garage of the manor through which one passes to get to the theatre. I always try to see at least one classical play when I come to Avignon and more if possible, because this is about my only chance to get a little culture at a low price. El Cid is full of amorous torment and the actors were quite good, but the performance just did not take off as I had hoped.
3. At 2 p.m. I was at Le Paris, which is a cinema (3 screens) at other times of the year. 90 seats, 14 spectators. The play was “Le Bal des Couillons” (“Festival of Assholes”), a vaudeville piece. This is another genre that I try to see in Avignon, even though it is totally out of fashion. OMG, what a mistake – definitely the worst play I saw in Avignon. A Parisian lawyer comes to some isolated farm for some reason or other, and the “comedy” is the clash between the farmer and the Parisian. Meanwhile, the farmer is being haunted by his dead wife. That’s about all I remember about the plot. Since there were so few spectators, extra “humour” was created by talking directly to them with big winks and smirks. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
4. At 5:15 p.m. I was at La Maison de la Parole to see “Titiboulibi.” 25 seats, 19 spectators. It was the living room of a bourgeois apartment. It turned out to be one of the most extraordinary moments of the festival for me. Actually, there was a group of 17 “troubled teens” with their group leader and me. They arrived at the last minute, so this might have turned out to be a spectacle with one performer and one spectator (there have been more embarrassing ratios in the past – once, a few years ago, there were 4 spectators for 15 people on stage). Titiboulibi is a charming young man who sings, slams and tells stories. The group was from Castres, and this was the very first live performance that a lot of them were ever seeing. He was excellent with interaction and did not mind being interrupted by questions, and the vast majority of these young people seemed very happy to discover something from a totally different universe. Two or three of them would have preferred to keep their i-Pod headphones on.
5. At 8 p.m. I was at the Théâtre des Doms, which is the headquarters of the main Belgian troupes every year. 120 seats, 70 spectators. It is a real theatre built in the back of an old bourgeois house, which has a very nice garden, fountain and mist sprayers in the intense heat. It was a 2-person play called “Combat avec l’ombre” (Fight with a shadow). The actors were excellent, but the play was a totally blah dialogue with a lack of direction. This was very disappointing because the Belgian plays that I have seen in the past were excellent.
6. Only July 9th at 11 a.m. I saw the best play of “my” festival – Métallos et Dégraisseurs (Steelworkers and Fat Cutters) at the Théâtre du Bourg Neuf. 70 seats, 35 spectators. It’s an old workshop or maybe a shop on a side street. There were 5 actors on stage playing a huge number of roles over a period of 7 generations, all working in the same steel cable factory. It was hilarious and tragic, seeing how having a job was so important to be able to live one’s life while at the same time being crushed, ignored, betrayed and tossed aside (by the “fat cutters”) as circumstances required. It was very easy to apply everything on stage to one’s own professional life, no matter what profession, while life goes on and couples form, children are born, the old people die… and people find some happiness anyway.
7. At the Porte Saint Michel at 1:30 p.m. I saw “Napoléon” – 49 seats, 10 spectators. The theatre was an old storeroom. This was presented as “not a play but a historical classroom lesson about Bonaparte as you wish your teacher had taught the subject.” And that’s exactly what it was – the life of Napoleon with wisecracks, anecdotes, exaggeration… but also quite a bit of information. It was a very worthwhile hour, particularly for the parents who had brought their children.
8. The Collège de la Salle is one of the biggest theatrical operations of the Off. It is a relatively huge school and it houses an amazing number of theatrical companies, who perform in the gymnasium, in the dance studio, in meeting rooms, in classrooms, in the courtyards… There are usually about 5 or 6 ticket counters in activity at all times and it can get a bit confusing for first timers. However, they have come up with gimmicks so that people can figure out where they need to go such as “follow the yellow line on the pavement all the way to the end.” Said yellow line passed through three different courtyards and made several turns, but it faithfully took me to my destination… unfortunately.
“Un amour de train” (Love on a train) which I saw at 3:52 p.m. struck me as a complete waste of time and yet everybody seemed to love it. The room claimed to have 62 seats, but they kept adding chairs and there were at least 80 spectators. The idea of the play in itself was kind of cute. A dead man is trapped as a ghost on a commuter train and he must stay there until he makes a couple fall in love with each other. They take the train every day and never even give each other so much as a passing glance. He can’t talk to them directly but can only whisper ideas to get things in motion. Well, I was bored. They all seemed dead to me, not just the ghost.
9. Ever the masochist, at 7 p.m. I was at another play on rue des Teinturiers at Au Magasin – obviously a former shop. The play was “Cellule grise” (Gray cell, but also a play on words for the ‘gray matter’ of the brain). The premise was that a mild-mannered teacher had to return to prison for 24 hours after serving his 2 or 3 month term because of an administrative error. He had served one day less than he was supposed to, so he had to make it up. Unfortunately the prison is full, so he is put in the same high security cell as a prisoner known as “le furieux” who is unsurprisingly furious, since that is his permanent condition. He’s in for life, so it doesn’t matter what he does – even if he kills the teacher his life won’t get any worse. Lots of shouting and threats and unexpected moments of communication. But the whole question of the play is if the teacher will survive those 24 hours or not. There were 49 seats and 5 spectators. The play was excellent.
10. I started July 10th off really late – at La Cour du Barouf to see another classic, Molière’s “Les Précieuses Ridicules” (I see that the title is sometimes translated into English as ‘The Ridiculous Précieuses’ or ‘The Affected Ladies.’). It is a typical Molière farce wherein two young women from the provinces come to Paris searching for love. They scorn two perfectly acceptable noblemen and instead fall in love with two other men who they think are more noble. But it is just a nasty trick because they are in fact the valets of the real noblemen. Anyway, La Cour du Barouf is a nice place, because it is an outdoor (but shaded) courtyard, actually the parking zone of a car repair shop or some such – but I was disappointed by this performance. While played in the usual wigs and frills, it was also anachronistically updated for comic effect in certain points, and this for me was a case where “new and improved” did not work. And even if everybody was in the shade, I really suffered for the actors wearing their fancy costumes (and having do to quick changes, too, with sweat running down their faces). 120 seats for 35 spectators.
11. At 2:25 p.m. I was at the Théâtre des Lucioles which seems like it used to be a small factory just inside the walls of the city. “Monsieur Agop” was a magnificent play about an old Armenian who arrives at the airport in Marseille (Marseille being one of the largest settlement zones in the world for the Armenian diaspora) with the desire to find Mr. Agop, who saved his life as a child. He has no idea where in Marseille Mr. Agop might be, and on top of that Agop is the first name, not the family name. He is assisted by a cleaning lady from the airport and two simpleton taxi driving brothers to go and find Mr. Agop so that he can unburden himself with his terrible secret. It is one of those plays that shifts from high comedy to high drama in a heartbeat, and the performances were excellent. On top of that, it is based on a true story. 120 seats, 30 spectators.
12. At 4:15 p.m. I was at the Théâtre du Roi René, another sort of small factory space. The play was “L’Autre Rive” (The other bank) – one should realize than when a play has such a boring, meaningless title, the text risks corresponding to the title. 6 people jabbered at each other in the dark about some sort of underworld intrigue and in the end they all kill each other. Actually, it was a bit comic because everything went wrong during the play, as though it were not already bad enough – the music broke down, two of the actors accidentally smashed a piece of the set and then fell on it, and apparently they weren’t really supposed to be in the dark so much, but their lighting was not working either. After the very limp applause, they apologized for the technical difficulties. 198 seats, 20 spectators. Get me outta here!
13. I had to get that last bad play out of my mind, so I chose the easy way out for my last spectacle. I went to the well-named Antidote Théâtre at 9:09 p.m. and saw a stand-up comedian with whose work I am familiar – Anthony Joubert. I had already seen bits and pieces of his routine on television, but he has a pleasant personality and he is from Arles, so it almost like a homeboy playing in Avignon, because he has the accent. And of course it is always interesting to see how a stand-up comedian deals with the audience – not laughing when he hoped they would, or laughing too much at the wrong thing. He carried it off quite well, so I was able to end my little theatrical whirlwind on a pleasant note. 85 seats, 60 spectators.
Next year I will go to the festival a bit later, because this made me remember how disconcerting it can be to see interesting spectacles in empty theatres – after the first week, word of mouth fills up the good places. And yet, something makes me want to see the beginning sometimes, too – to see these young actors acting their hearts out in front of a handful of people probably thinking “we’ll laugh about this some day.”
I always try to imagine how they survive. These theatres (or “performance places”) cost between 4000 euros and 35,000 euros to rent for the month – and of course they are mostly rented for just 2 hours a day, which is why most of the spectacles last 75 minutes maximum because the other 45 minutes must be used for installing and taking down their sets, which are reduced to the strict minimum. Most of the plays are performed 23 times, from the first day to the last day with no break. So just to cover the rent, the small places need 20 spectators and the big places need 130 spectators for every performance. They have to house themselves and feed themselves and pay for their own transportation… so let’s just say that most have them have lost quite a bit of weight by the end of the month. Some people try the adventure just once, some come back year after year… and some of them hit the jackpot and have become major international stars. It fascinates me.
1. The scheduled beginning of the « Off » was July 8th, but I arrived on the 7th and discovered that quite a few of the theatres were giving free performances that day, so at half past noon, I found myself at the Albatros on rue des Teinturiers for a performance of "To Be or Not to Be." This had absolutely nothing to do with Shakespeare but was instead a sort of joyous historical one-man conference about the history of theatre as seen through architecture.
This might not sound like the most interesting thing in the world, but it was excellent, and the actor had all sorts of wood blocks, arches, rectangles, etc., to show how things changed over the years. He in fact began with prehistoric cave paintings and extrapolated how the artist would act out the hunt to his friends while pointing at the images of animals and spears. He continued on to Greek plays in amphitheatres, passion plays, Elizabethan plays and the still extremely prevalent “Italian style” theatres with the balconies surrounding the stage and newer square configurations. It sounds boring, but it was really informative, for example when he said that thanks to Louis XIV, Paris had a grand total of 2 theatres, because the king was one of the only people who supported the theatre, when London already had almost 60.
To wrap up the show, the actor pointed out that theatre is one of the only things that has lasted for 10,000 years so it is really a lot more important than many people think it is.
I thought it was an excellent introduction to the festival. I always note the number of seats in these places and how many spectators, so: 49 seats, 49 spectators – kind of normal for a free performance.
However, after all of these years of going to Avignon, this is the very first time that I noticed how many of these little theatres have only 49 seats. There is obviously some sort of irritating (and probably expensive) regulation that begins with theatres having 50 seats and more. The Albatros is just a former storefront on a small street.
2. The next morning at 11 a.m. was “Le Cid” by Corneille at the Espace Roseau. 80 seats, 25 spectators. I think this used to be the garage of the manor through which one passes to get to the theatre. I always try to see at least one classical play when I come to Avignon and more if possible, because this is about my only chance to get a little culture at a low price. El Cid is full of amorous torment and the actors were quite good, but the performance just did not take off as I had hoped.
3. At 2 p.m. I was at Le Paris, which is a cinema (3 screens) at other times of the year. 90 seats, 14 spectators. The play was “Le Bal des Couillons” (“Festival of Assholes”), a vaudeville piece. This is another genre that I try to see in Avignon, even though it is totally out of fashion. OMG, what a mistake – definitely the worst play I saw in Avignon. A Parisian lawyer comes to some isolated farm for some reason or other, and the “comedy” is the clash between the farmer and the Parisian. Meanwhile, the farmer is being haunted by his dead wife. That’s about all I remember about the plot. Since there were so few spectators, extra “humour” was created by talking directly to them with big winks and smirks. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
4. At 5:15 p.m. I was at La Maison de la Parole to see “Titiboulibi.” 25 seats, 19 spectators. It was the living room of a bourgeois apartment. It turned out to be one of the most extraordinary moments of the festival for me. Actually, there was a group of 17 “troubled teens” with their group leader and me. They arrived at the last minute, so this might have turned out to be a spectacle with one performer and one spectator (there have been more embarrassing ratios in the past – once, a few years ago, there were 4 spectators for 15 people on stage). Titiboulibi is a charming young man who sings, slams and tells stories. The group was from Castres, and this was the very first live performance that a lot of them were ever seeing. He was excellent with interaction and did not mind being interrupted by questions, and the vast majority of these young people seemed very happy to discover something from a totally different universe. Two or three of them would have preferred to keep their i-Pod headphones on.
5. At 8 p.m. I was at the Théâtre des Doms, which is the headquarters of the main Belgian troupes every year. 120 seats, 70 spectators. It is a real theatre built in the back of an old bourgeois house, which has a very nice garden, fountain and mist sprayers in the intense heat. It was a 2-person play called “Combat avec l’ombre” (Fight with a shadow). The actors were excellent, but the play was a totally blah dialogue with a lack of direction. This was very disappointing because the Belgian plays that I have seen in the past were excellent.
6. Only July 9th at 11 a.m. I saw the best play of “my” festival – Métallos et Dégraisseurs (Steelworkers and Fat Cutters) at the Théâtre du Bourg Neuf. 70 seats, 35 spectators. It’s an old workshop or maybe a shop on a side street. There were 5 actors on stage playing a huge number of roles over a period of 7 generations, all working in the same steel cable factory. It was hilarious and tragic, seeing how having a job was so important to be able to live one’s life while at the same time being crushed, ignored, betrayed and tossed aside (by the “fat cutters”) as circumstances required. It was very easy to apply everything on stage to one’s own professional life, no matter what profession, while life goes on and couples form, children are born, the old people die… and people find some happiness anyway.
7. At the Porte Saint Michel at 1:30 p.m. I saw “Napoléon” – 49 seats, 10 spectators. The theatre was an old storeroom. This was presented as “not a play but a historical classroom lesson about Bonaparte as you wish your teacher had taught the subject.” And that’s exactly what it was – the life of Napoleon with wisecracks, anecdotes, exaggeration… but also quite a bit of information. It was a very worthwhile hour, particularly for the parents who had brought their children.
8. The Collège de la Salle is one of the biggest theatrical operations of the Off. It is a relatively huge school and it houses an amazing number of theatrical companies, who perform in the gymnasium, in the dance studio, in meeting rooms, in classrooms, in the courtyards… There are usually about 5 or 6 ticket counters in activity at all times and it can get a bit confusing for first timers. However, they have come up with gimmicks so that people can figure out where they need to go such as “follow the yellow line on the pavement all the way to the end.” Said yellow line passed through three different courtyards and made several turns, but it faithfully took me to my destination… unfortunately.
“Un amour de train” (Love on a train) which I saw at 3:52 p.m. struck me as a complete waste of time and yet everybody seemed to love it. The room claimed to have 62 seats, but they kept adding chairs and there were at least 80 spectators. The idea of the play in itself was kind of cute. A dead man is trapped as a ghost on a commuter train and he must stay there until he makes a couple fall in love with each other. They take the train every day and never even give each other so much as a passing glance. He can’t talk to them directly but can only whisper ideas to get things in motion. Well, I was bored. They all seemed dead to me, not just the ghost.
9. Ever the masochist, at 7 p.m. I was at another play on rue des Teinturiers at Au Magasin – obviously a former shop. The play was “Cellule grise” (Gray cell, but also a play on words for the ‘gray matter’ of the brain). The premise was that a mild-mannered teacher had to return to prison for 24 hours after serving his 2 or 3 month term because of an administrative error. He had served one day less than he was supposed to, so he had to make it up. Unfortunately the prison is full, so he is put in the same high security cell as a prisoner known as “le furieux” who is unsurprisingly furious, since that is his permanent condition. He’s in for life, so it doesn’t matter what he does – even if he kills the teacher his life won’t get any worse. Lots of shouting and threats and unexpected moments of communication. But the whole question of the play is if the teacher will survive those 24 hours or not. There were 49 seats and 5 spectators. The play was excellent.
10. I started July 10th off really late – at La Cour du Barouf to see another classic, Molière’s “Les Précieuses Ridicules” (I see that the title is sometimes translated into English as ‘The Ridiculous Précieuses’ or ‘The Affected Ladies.’). It is a typical Molière farce wherein two young women from the provinces come to Paris searching for love. They scorn two perfectly acceptable noblemen and instead fall in love with two other men who they think are more noble. But it is just a nasty trick because they are in fact the valets of the real noblemen. Anyway, La Cour du Barouf is a nice place, because it is an outdoor (but shaded) courtyard, actually the parking zone of a car repair shop or some such – but I was disappointed by this performance. While played in the usual wigs and frills, it was also anachronistically updated for comic effect in certain points, and this for me was a case where “new and improved” did not work. And even if everybody was in the shade, I really suffered for the actors wearing their fancy costumes (and having do to quick changes, too, with sweat running down their faces). 120 seats for 35 spectators.
11. At 2:25 p.m. I was at the Théâtre des Lucioles which seems like it used to be a small factory just inside the walls of the city. “Monsieur Agop” was a magnificent play about an old Armenian who arrives at the airport in Marseille (Marseille being one of the largest settlement zones in the world for the Armenian diaspora) with the desire to find Mr. Agop, who saved his life as a child. He has no idea where in Marseille Mr. Agop might be, and on top of that Agop is the first name, not the family name. He is assisted by a cleaning lady from the airport and two simpleton taxi driving brothers to go and find Mr. Agop so that he can unburden himself with his terrible secret. It is one of those plays that shifts from high comedy to high drama in a heartbeat, and the performances were excellent. On top of that, it is based on a true story. 120 seats, 30 spectators.
12. At 4:15 p.m. I was at the Théâtre du Roi René, another sort of small factory space. The play was “L’Autre Rive” (The other bank) – one should realize than when a play has such a boring, meaningless title, the text risks corresponding to the title. 6 people jabbered at each other in the dark about some sort of underworld intrigue and in the end they all kill each other. Actually, it was a bit comic because everything went wrong during the play, as though it were not already bad enough – the music broke down, two of the actors accidentally smashed a piece of the set and then fell on it, and apparently they weren’t really supposed to be in the dark so much, but their lighting was not working either. After the very limp applause, they apologized for the technical difficulties. 198 seats, 20 spectators. Get me outta here!
13. I had to get that last bad play out of my mind, so I chose the easy way out for my last spectacle. I went to the well-named Antidote Théâtre at 9:09 p.m. and saw a stand-up comedian with whose work I am familiar – Anthony Joubert. I had already seen bits and pieces of his routine on television, but he has a pleasant personality and he is from Arles, so it almost like a homeboy playing in Avignon, because he has the accent. And of course it is always interesting to see how a stand-up comedian deals with the audience – not laughing when he hoped they would, or laughing too much at the wrong thing. He carried it off quite well, so I was able to end my little theatrical whirlwind on a pleasant note. 85 seats, 60 spectators.
Next year I will go to the festival a bit later, because this made me remember how disconcerting it can be to see interesting spectacles in empty theatres – after the first week, word of mouth fills up the good places. And yet, something makes me want to see the beginning sometimes, too – to see these young actors acting their hearts out in front of a handful of people probably thinking “we’ll laugh about this some day.”
I always try to imagine how they survive. These theatres (or “performance places”) cost between 4000 euros and 35,000 euros to rent for the month – and of course they are mostly rented for just 2 hours a day, which is why most of the spectacles last 75 minutes maximum because the other 45 minutes must be used for installing and taking down their sets, which are reduced to the strict minimum. Most of the plays are performed 23 times, from the first day to the last day with no break. So just to cover the rent, the small places need 20 spectators and the big places need 130 spectators for every performance. They have to house themselves and feed themselves and pay for their own transportation… so let’s just say that most have them have lost quite a bit of weight by the end of the month. Some people try the adventure just once, some come back year after year… and some of them hit the jackpot and have become major international stars. It fascinates me.
