“Molière and his masks”, Simon Falguières’ farce tour – Libération

The Moulin de l’Hydre, a former Normandy spinning mill converted into a theatre residency, hosted its annual festival this weekend. The director presented his latest creation, a promising detour through comedy.

There are places that shape the destiny of a troupe, where past and future adventures are anchored, where the contours of the souls that make them grow are fused. The author and director Simon Falguières has projected dreams as large as the thick stone walls that support it into the Moulin de l’hydre. This former cotton mill on the border of Orne and Calvados is his utopian island: a “theatre factory”, inaugurated in May after two and a half years of colossal participatory work. A space for creation, storage, construction, and accommodation, the Moulin is the fruit of rigorous work by builders, accustomed to collective adventures and unreasonable projects. The windows of the large rehearsal room offer a breathtaking view of the aptly named Mount Cerisy-Belle-Etoile, against the slopes of which the steps of the outdoor stage seem to rest. At the bottom of the garden winds the Noireau, whose gurgling sounds like a second blessing.

This is the third year that a back-to-school festival has been organised here, two days of shows and concerts that bring together almost as many people as the inhabitants of the small Orne commune of Saint-Pierre d’Entremont – around 660 people. To get there, you have to crisscross the winding roads of this hilly Swiss Normandy and, above all, not fear the rain – torrential today, according to locals who have had a downpour before. Concert cut short, show put on