Soireé Française

We had a very French evening yesterday.

Our friends James and Monique invited us to see a local theatrical performance.   Some of James’s photos were in it so we were happy to go.

We should have known it would be a little, um, different when we read the description: “Emergence.  It is the story of the urgent need to share, the story of resistance and hope in the face of fear.  We surround the authors, and indeed others, to hear how to think with words in the face of evil.”

Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.

The performance space was an artist’s studio, very rough and maybe 20’ by 20’.  Here and there were some of James’s photos.  The studio was filled with the artist’s ceramics and they were…hmm, what is the word?...weird. 

At one end of the room was a dinner table covered with a white tablecloth.  The three performers sat frozen in place around it, Last Supper style, with one wearing a kind of Burger King crown.

There was a small area for the audience to sit in front of the table, plus more chairs around it.  We all filed in while loud music played on a repeating loop.  The actors didn’t move.

Finally the lights dimmed, the music stopped, and the actors began reading passages from the papers in front of them.  Most were in florid, poetic language that we had a hard time following.  We could understand the words, but not always the sense.  And to be fair, part of our trouble understanding was because sometimes the actors spoke with food in their mouths.  But of course.

One of the actresses was terrific.  She spoke incredibly clearly and with great emotion.  For French learners like us, she was a pleasure to listen to.  Except for the food in the mouth part.

After a while the actors stopped, cranked up some new music and started dancing wildly.  Ok, then!  Luckily this wasn’t an audience participation show.

Then they went back to reading passages. They drank wine and passed around glasses to the audience, then later took back the partly-finished glasses and emptied them onto the tablecloth.  Then they poured out the rest of the wine from the bottles onto the tablecloth.  And it was good wine, too! I understand artistic license but really, this was quite shocking to me.

For the grand finale, one actor ate part of the script while another burned it page by page.  The third stroked a bleached cattle skull with a carrot sticking through it (one of the ceramics) while munching contemplatively on a carrot herself.

Toto, we are seriously not on the same planet as Kansas.

Then the show was over and, of course, out came the food and drink.  Everyone discussed the show plus other topics – the weak economy, existentialism, what an idiot French president Francois Hollande is.  You know, the usual stuff.

In other words, just a normal evening in France.

KVS

Lights, camera...

Burn, baby, burn