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Back to the theatre! Yay!!!!
I’ve wanted to write a billet about how happy I am to be able to go the theatre again. Nothing compares to sitting in a theatre and watching a play and I missed it dearly. I usually have a subscription to the theatre in Lyon and go to ten to twelve plays during the season. In 2020-2021, almost all plays were cancelled due to the Covid crisis. As soon as the theatres reopened, I bought tickets. I hope theatres will survive these long months they had to keep their doors closed.
I started end of June in Paris, with St Ex in New York, a play written and directed by Jean-Claude Idée. In France, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is nicknamed St-Ex, hence the title of the play. It focuses on a special time in Saint-Exupéry’s life.
We’re in 1942, he’s living in New York with his wife Consuelo, who has an affair with Denis de Rougemont. Saint-Ex has an American mistress, Sylvia. He’s writing Le Petit Prince and he’s hitching to go back to France, enroll in the army and fight in the war.
The four of them fight, discuss art, writing and try to discourage St Ex to go back to Europe and risk his life at war. I didn’t know much about St Ex’s life, except for his experience as a pilot. I knew nothing about his temper, his relationship with his wife or anything else. Phew! If the play is accurate, he and Consuelo were like oil and water, fighting, making up, hurting each other and all in the name of love. The play shows a St Ex who’s not happy to be far from combat but is also pressured to give his support to the Général de Gaulle.
Le Petit Prince stems from this time and I understand that the temperamental rose is actually Consuelo in real life. The play was vivid and it showed an interesting moment in St Ex’s life.
End of August, I was in Paris again and went to see Le Cercle des Illusionnistes, written and directed by Alexis Michalik.
This play won several Molières, the most prestigious prize for theatre. Michalik has the knack for embarking you in his unique brand of storytelling. I’d already loved his Porteur d’histoires.
Le Cercle des Illusionnistes opens in 1984, it’s a football championship and Décembre steals a handbag in the metro. He contacts its owner, Avril, a pretty young lady because he wants to get to know her.
He starts telling her the story of Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, watchmaker, magician and illusionist of the 19th C. He was before Houdini and invented lots of techniques that are still used by conjurors. He was also a creator of automatons, ran a theatre in the heart of Paris.
The play goes back and forth between 1984 and the 19th century and we discover Robert-Houdin, his life and his heritage. It’s the kind of play that removes you temporarily from your life, puts a smile on your face and just makes you happy. Most needed in these stressful times.
Yesterday was the beginning of my new season here at the theatre in Lyon. It opened with Skylight by David Hare, directed by Claudia Stavisky. The play dates back to 1995 and was translated into French by Dominique Hollier.
We’re in the 1990s in a poor neighborhood in London. Kyra lives in an old apartment building, it’s cold because the central heating isn’t good. Tom comes to visit her, uninvited. He’s in his fifties, a successful businessman whose company was just listed on the stock market. Kyra teaches mathematics to underprivileged children. They were lovers and Kyra left him when his wife Alice discovered their relationship. They still love each other but butt heads over their past.
They confront their present, what they want to do with their lives. Their path differed. Kyra comes from a rather wealthy background, lived and worked with Tom for a while, left him to earn a lot more and live modestly. Tom came from a poorer background and became a successful and rich businessman.
The play questions the power of love and what we can accept and compromise for it. Love isn’t enough to build a solid and healthy relationship. These two still love each other but can’t live together.
The play also explores social issues. Tom and Kyra have different stances on money. Kyra despises money in a way that only people who grew up without money worries can afford to. Tom knows better and enjoys the perks money brings him. What’s more meaningful or valuable? Teaching mathematics to underprivileged kids and help them move forward through education or founding and running a successful business that provides jobs for people? Are the two approaches irreconcilable?
Hare’s text is excellent, alternating between feeling and debating, between emotion and humor. The actors, Patrick Catalifo, Marie Vialle and Sacha Ribeiro, who plays Tom’s son were outstanding. We were in this apartment with Tom and Kyra, eager to know how things would turn out for them.
It’s a relief to resume watching plays live. Stay tuned, next week I’m going to see L’Ile des Esclaves by Marivaux, a play were masters and servants reverse their roles. 18th century magic.
Please, draw me a sheep!
Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. 1943.
The first time I read The Little Prince, I was eleven and I loved it. This summer I decided to read it along with my children. The Narrator – possibly Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – is an aviator whose plane is out-of-order in the desert. He’s trying to repair it when a little boy with golden hair comes to him and asks « Please, draw me a sheep » The Narrator draws the sheep and starts chatting with the Little Prince. He comes from a tiny planet with three volcanos and a rose. The Narrator assumes the planet is the Asteroid B612. The Little Prince left his planet because he thought his rose was too demanding. He relates his journey to the Earth, going from one planet to the other and meeting with strange people. All the issues are still relevant or have become bigger or more urgent since 1943. Through a candid Little Prince and his exploration of foreign planets, Saint-Exupéry questions the exploitation of natural resources, our greed, our respect for processes until absurdity, the domination of the West on other cultures, the dictatorship of appearance.
My favourite ones are the businessman and the lamp-lighter.
The businessman thinks he owns the stars and spends his time counting them. The Little Prince is rather puzzled:
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– Comment peut-on posséder les étoiles? – A qui sont-elles? Riposta, grincheux, le businessman.- Je ne sais pas. A personne.- Alors elles sont à moi, parce que j’y ai pensé le premier. – Ça suffit?
– Bien sûr. Quand tu trouves un diamant qui n’est à personne, il est à toi. Quand tu trouves une île qui n’est à personne, elle est à toi. Quand tu as une idée le premier, tu la fais breveter: elle est à toi. Et moi je possède les étoiles, puisque jamais personne avant moi n’a songé à les posséder.
– How can you own the stars? – Who owns them?, the businessman retorts curtly– I don’t know. Nobody.– Then they are mine because I thought about it first. – Is that enough?
– Of course. When you find a diamond that doesn’t belong to anybody, then it’s yours. When you find an island that doesn’t belong to anybody, it’s yours. When you’re the first to have an idea, you take out a patent for it. It’s yours. And I own the stars since before me, nobody ever thought of owning them.
Aren’t there people who now sell parts of the moon?
The lamp-lighter has to light the street lamp at night and switch them off in the morning. He can’t sleep because on his planet one day lasts one minute, so he spends his time switching on and off the street lamps. It was different before, days became shorter but the man lives according to the book. It says to switch the street lamps on and off once a day and that’s what he does whatever the cost or how absurd it is. He can’t adjust or use his good sense and act differently.
Then there’s the part on Earth. In our times of frantic social networking and calling « friend » a person met by a random click on Facebook, children should all read The Little Prince and discuss with an adult the passage with the fox. The Little Prince encounters a fox who wants to befriend with him. The fox says « you must tame me »
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– Je cherche des amis [dit le petit prince] Qu’est-ce que signifie « apprivoiser »?- C’est une chose trop oubliée, dit le renard. Ça signifie « créer des liens… »- Créer des liens?-Bien sûr, dit le renard. Tu n’es encore pour moi qu’un petit garçon tout semblable à cent mille petits garçons. Et je n’ai pas besoin de toi. Et tu n’as pas besoin de moi non plus. Je ne suis pour toi qu’un renard semblable à cent mille renards. Mais, si tu m’apprivoises, nous aurons besoin l’un de l’autre. Tu seras pour moi unique au monde. Je serai pour toi unique au monde… – I’m looking for friends, [the Little Prince says] What does ‘to tame’ mean?– It’s a long forgotten thing, the fox says. It means « to create bonds… »– To create bonds?– Of course, the fox says. For me, you’re still a little boy, similar to 100 000 other little boys. And I don’t need you. And you don’t need me. For you I’m only a fox similar to 100 000 other foxes. But if you tame me, we’ll need each other. To me, you’ll be unique. To you, I’ll be unique…
Friendship is not a declaration (or a click), it needs time to settle, to build and that’s what the fox teaches to the Little Prince. In that chapter, the Little Prince also learns about love. He discovers that his rose is unique and that friendship and love go along with some responsibility. You receive love but you have to care about who gives it to you.
I had forgotten about the businessman but I remembered this part. I recalled this book as full of light. Years later, I still think it’s a fantastic tale, a concentrate of humanism and goodness. Saint-Exupéry wrote this in 1943, during dark ages for Europe. I wonder if it was a way to forget the war and its horrors. He was lost at sea in 1944. He probably never knew about the Holocaust. I wonder what this knowledge would have done to his faith in humanity.
Book Around the Corner 