El Hombre que...?

Theater and film have made a not effortless marriage since video technology began being used on stage, offering new possibilities for set design and narration. The aptly named company Teatrocinema from Chili puts that relationship at the center of its preoccupations, but after a well-received visit to Paris in 2009, with “Sin Sangre”, the exercise proves perilous in its latest endeavor, “El Hombre que daba de beber a las mariposas”. The show is challenged on various levels, although its technical sophistication is not one of them: the animated film which forms the backdrop for the characters’ movements smartly switches planes from medieval castles to cityscapes, and from towering forests to film sets, with dizzying perspectives, rich hues and sweeping movement. The three-tiered story overlapping lovers past and present revolves around the magico-realist story of a man who learns the ancient art of nourishing Monarch butterflies as they begin their annual migration, and who is bequeathed life-sustaining secrets in return. The ambitions of the tale do not live up however to their enactment on stage: the repeated story lines become redundant, the intended lyricism falls flat (despite a necessary distancing effect wherein the medieval tale proves to be a film in the process of being made), and the message finally seems, unlike the butterflies’ journey, not to take us very far. But if the company means to touch on something strange indeed in the juxtaposition of animated sequences and live acting they succeed: there was an odd anti-climax in seeing the actors take their bow, in medieval get-up and masks (the necessity of these also unclear) against the empty blue screen. Without the filmed decors, they looked fantastically... out of place.

To Dec. 30, Théâtre des Abbesses, www.theatredelaville-paris.com/aux-abbesses

Le Mariage

Marriage is a topic of conversation this month (see parisvoice.com posting of “Dämnone”) but Lilo Baur looks at its more farcical expressions à la Gogol in “Le Mariage”. A civil servant concerned with appearances in his ripening years, a conniving marriage broker after making an advantageous match, and the daughter of a wealthy merchant with a promising dowry are all it takes to make light of the venerable institution that nevertheless weighs unbearably on the couple that “should”, would?, but never gets together. Standing in the way of their betrothal are at least three obstacles in the form of a trio of aspiring grooms (a retired sailor, a paunchy bailiff and an effeminate soldier, played to perfect pitch by Alain Lenglet, Nicolas Lormeau and Jean-Baptiste Malartre), each more fatuous than the next. No hurdle is greater however than Kapilotadov’s own fear of committing to the irreparable (Gogol lived long before drive-through divorces), not to mention Agafia Agatanovna’s “embarrassment” at the mere idea of adding “Missus” to her name. Gogol’s text takes the ceremony out of the romantic exercise with malicious glee, reducing marriage to a burlesque bargain made to the satisfaction of everyone but the bride and groom.

Lilo Baur and her cast excel at breathing a fine-tuned wit into Gogol’s satire, jumping into physical gags as surely as they opine tellingly on the risks and perils of conjugal bliss. Baur has a highly developed sense of humor and timing, from her theater training with Peter Brook and Simon McBurney’s Complicité company, and she uses it to great effect here, allowing silences and expressions to speak louder than words. The courtship scene between Kapilotadov and Agafia Agatanovna writes volumes about the characters’ hesitations in their mute exchanges. What woman wants, God provides, the adage goes, but nothing beats instinct, in the form of (at last one) man’s fight or flight response. No wedding bells ring in Gogol’s text but Baur’s “Mariage” is a no less joyful assembly.

To Jan. 2., Tues, 7 pm, Wed-Sat, 8 pm, Sun, 4 pm, Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier, 21 rue du Vieux-Colombier, 6e, M° St. Sulpice, 8€-29€, tel: 01.44.39.87.00, www.comedie-francaise.fr

Photo Credit: Cosimo Mirco Magliocca

“Ça”

Henry James likened belief in a grand destiny to a beast that devours the misguided souls who are unfortunate enough to experience it. Director Jan Ritsema adapts James’ “The Beast in the Jungle” (1903) as “Ça”, trading the novelist’s concerns with self-actualization for a purely formal exercise, but one that provides an interesting complement to the story’s thematic premise. James imagined a man who wastes his life waiting for the « big something » that will reveal to him the meaning of his presence in this world, never seeing the woman who agrees to wait with him. Through a complete decontexualization of the text, Ritsema attempts to place James’ psychological action in an unspecified present: the conversations that paralyze John and May from acting in the world are shared (or meant to be) by actors Nathalie Richard and Gérard Watkins, who, in street clothes on a blank stage, smoke or move about as they feel inclined and apparently refuse the theatrical fiction.

Does it work? Ritsema provides a fascinating hour of heightened listening to James’ century old text, to find in it a sense of personal importance and power that is perhaps more relevant – and prevalent – in our individualistic societies and their virtual worlds. The actors achieve a subtle complicity between each other and the audience, where every word, look and intonation counts towards understanding who, among the characters, the actors as themselves or their staged personas, is speaking. The visual and aural set design, by video artist Dominque Gonzalez-Foerster, is somewhat curious: the cinematic reference ("Viridiana" by Luis Buñel) remains enigmatic here but the background noise it creates forces the audience to lend a more attentive ear to the actors’ parrying. A modern and challenging approach to James’ text, while preserving his piercing attention to the psyche in its tortured search for meaning.

To Dec. 10, Mon, Tues, Fri, Sat, 8 pm, Thurs, 7 pm, Théâtre de la Cité internationale, 17 bd Jourdan, 14e, RER B Cité universitaire, 10-21 €, tel: 01.43.13.50.50.

Photo Credit: Benoîte Fanton/WikiSpectacle