PART TWO

Now in Europe, the tour begins! My first week was spent in Paris and Brussels, accompanied by my girlfriend, for six days of French theatre. Here's what we saw:

First stop was Moliere's The Miser at the Comedie Francaise, the national theatre of France. The theatre sits in a quiet square, just a stone's throw from the Louvre. Busts of famous actors and writers line the walls and a regal red carpet leads the way to your rather luxurious velvet seat. I began to feel slightly conscious of the less than ironed shirt I had pulled out of my rucksack.

The show itself was what you might expect from a French farce. A highly energetic and expressive cast supported the real star of the show, the miser himself, Harpagon. Playing the role, Denis Podalydes was a spitting image of Blackadder as he frollicked across the stage, whalloping servants with his cane and haranging the world in Basil Faulty-esque tones. His performance was brilliantly crafted and he looked completely exhausted at the end when the curtain calls lasted for the good part of ten minutes. In France, if the actors have done their job well they are greeted not by raptuous applause, but by a regimented slow clap from the audience akin to that of an angry crowd of X-Factor fans.

Watching Moliere at the Comedie Francaise felt like watching Shakespeare at the Globe. The audience knew what they had come for and they loved it. You get the feeling that the experience of being at the theatre makes up for any flaws in the production.

Next up, the circus! After a half hour Metro ride and a fifteen minute walk into the outer suburbs of Paris we found two brightly coloured circus tents tucked away amidst the tower blocks and multistorey car parks.

The box office was in a rather tired looking caravan which also sold rather tired looking baguettes. When we entered the performance tent the Companie Rasposo (the majority of whom belong to the same family) were finishing up their dinner, tuning instruments, taking photos of the audience and squabbling over bits of set. There was no big opening, stuff just began! Two lads practiced gravity defying acrobatics on a couple of wooden chairs, the musicians started teaching each other some tunes and a clown played tricks on the audience.

The show was raw and dangerous: no safety nets, little choreography and in place of traditional circus animals, a mouse, a dog and a turkey. A high point of the night came when the large, elegant chandeleir that dominated the stage split with a great crash into eight seperate chandeleirs to gasps and screams from the audience below. For the rest of the show they hung in the air at different heights like jelly fish floating in the sea. Beautiful! There were no concessions for the children in the audience; the show was dark and dangerous, but nevertheless full of relentless charm and magical creativity.

On Sunday afternoon we ventured to Ateliers Berthier (a sister theatre to the famous Paris Theatre de L'Odeon) for a matinee of artistic director Oliver Py's Les Enfants de Saturnes. As it was a play I didn't really know, and was to run for two and a half hours without interval, I was not massively optmistic. As we sat down in front of a small rather simple set, I started to panic. About ten minutes in, just as I was resigning myself to a political drama in incomprehensible French, there was a huge jolt and the audience block (in which around 200 people were seated) slowly began to rotate! We were in fact in a huge warehouse space and surrounded by four incredible sets: a full size motel room, a funeral parlour in the woods, and a gigantic stately home. From scene to scene the audience was rotated following the action, with accompanying music from a grand piano. The final and most impressive scene featured a whale, ridden by two members of the cast, complete with a fully functioning blow spout! I still didn't understand a word…..

Next to Brussels where we attended the opening night of Joel Pommerat's Pinnochio at the Theatre National. This was no panto or Disney adaptation, and it certainly wasn't for young children. Adapted from the original, much darker story by Carlo Collodi, Pommerat's Pinnochio is a spoilt young brat who betrays his father, plays truant, and sells his school books to run away with criminals. A deadpan narrator, with microphone in hand, led us through a series of cinematic images each laced with dark wit and simple beauty. Image after image appeared out of the darkness: Pinnochio surrounded by puppets in school room, a boat stranded at sea on a sheet of crystal blue light, a child turning into a donkey. The lighting, the stage craft and the haunting refrains from a solitary musician were perfectly melded to create a stunning piece of theatre.

Had I understood the subtleties of the spoken text this could have been a perfect piece of theatre (must get a copy of the script!). I left feeling somewhat overwhelmed!

Finally, the wildcard of the week. On our last night in Brussels we ventured out to a Theatre de la Balsamine in the suburbs of the city. The evening's performance was L'Ecole des Ventriloques by Point Zero. The company specialised in full body puppets, attached to the controller at waist height. The characters were straight from a Dickensian underworld with macabre faces and terrifying voices. The real joy of this show was the masterful control of the puppeteers in bringing the characters to life. My favourite were a group of OAPs who hobbled onto the stage, shouting insults at the audience and cursing the world! The story seemed to be surplus to requirement, as did the bizarre video interludes of flickering images of the cast in the nude...

Coming up next week: Cabaret in Frankfurt, Romeo and Juliet in Munich and lots more!