There are those that we will discover among the 1683 shows on the bill of the Festival Off d’Avignon, offered by more than 1316 companies in 141 locations from July 3. As every year, we are on site to guide your choices in this great celebration of entertainment. Here are three of our favorites already presented in previews and to discover quickly. Enjoy the festival!
The weight of ants at the Manufacture
Jeanne is angry.Believing that I can change the world makes me want to be a part of it.” shouts the young high school girl who tags shampoo ads because they make her see an ugly image, who challenges her headmaster on the emptiness of school programs, who breaks into the Mayor’s office to perfect her speech. Because she is being offered the chance to be elected president of the high school association, she has the rage and the stature, the frankness and the loud talk. On the other side, Olivier, a teenager, dreams of a burnt planet and meets a bookseller who is often drunk and who offers him the most beautiful gift: The Encyclopedia of Useless Knowledgewhich informs us about the infinitesimal worlds that surround us, everything that we don’t know and that is of course essential. These two, Jeanne and Olivier, resemble all the young people revolted today by global warming, the waste of capitalism, the misery of the poorest and the wealth of the happy few. How can we act on all the disorders that threaten us? This is the purpose of this formidable show whose text by David Paquet is staged with a whirling energy by Philippe Cyr. On a stage invaded by a ball pit, topped by a terrace of synthetic grass and a flashy plastic palm tree, Nathalie Claude, an explosive redhead, plays around thirty roles, and Gaetan Nadeau plays the pot-bellied director who reacts like a dictator. Elisabeth Smith and Gabriel Szabo are formidable in the roles of the rebellious teenagers, who share with us the incandescent bouquet of our collective anxieties while inviting us, despite everything, to help each other and share.
From July 4th, at 10 a.m.
Brothers at the Theatre of the Holy Corps
© François Fonty
This is a play in the form of a wrestling match between two friends who are complete opposites but who share the same passion: cooking in a gourmet restaurant. Maxime and Emile find themselves in a CAP cuisine course. The first has to earn a living quickly and comes from a modest family, the second is the son of a bourgeois family whose authoritarian father owns a large restaurant. One is phlegmatic, unsure of himself and insecure, the other is nervous, determined and ready for anything. And these two, so different, will never leave each other. Clément Marchand, whose first play this is, describes an environment he knows well for having been around it when he was young. Far from the glitter and the telegenic showcase of Top Chefwhat he describes, through dialogues with fierce vivacity and full of tough humor, is the harshness and demands of the first steps in the kitchens for young apprentices. Infernal pace, racism, sexism, work in the kitchen resembles a priesthood in the exclusive service of the customer and the pleasure of tasting. All this is told with talent and humor in a breathtaking adventure, around the two characters and their dialogues with little onions. What is male friendship? Between admiration and rivalry, Jean-Baptiste Guinchard and Guillaume Tagnati are excellent in a tight staging by the author, subtly choreographed by Delphine Jungman. The music and a judicious decor complete the whole, a real treat we tell you!
From July 3, at 6:05 p.m.
“Badly Raised” at the Théâtre des Lila’s
©EliseGotchac
Why don’t we teach girls to say no? Why do we have to constantly apologize, even and especially when we’re not guilty? Continue to smile and thank despite the moral or physical harm, the vexations or bawdy jokes that girls are often the victims of? Astrid Tenon and Lætitia Wolf shared their experiences, their frustrations and their revolts as little girls, who became teenagers and adults. From this mixture of experiences, the two actresses concocted a show that is astonishingly accurate and subtle, where words, hard-hitting and edifying dialogues unfold on the way in which girls are pushed aside, formatted and despised in the family and social sphere. They recite these texts, both prosaic and poetic, challenge each other and have fun, evolving in a choreographic and symmetrical way on a hopscotch-shaped stage like in a schoolyard. They are very different and yet seem to be two sides of the same coin, the one that carries within it the memory of abuse, harassment and little lies. In beautiful lighting, the two actresses seem to obey a musical comedy rhythm, navigating without detour between the tragic and the comic, the real and the pretense. Everything is here signified, suggested with the delicacy of an artistic gesture carrying a masterful power. A real success.
From July 2, at 7:10 p.m.
Helene Kuttner
