Assoiffes, theater play

The theater play that I attend was pretty good actually. Assoiffes' is a nice show written by Wajdi Mouawad and edited and directed by Benoît Vermeulen.

On the stage we saw 2 actors Marie-Eve Huot and Benoît Landrythat with special skills for singing, playing music, physical theater and classical acting.
Ambient music composed and played from the main actors on experimental, (looks like) hand made instrument, with few drums and easy electronic samples was waiting for the audience to enter and sit on their places.

In the beginning when I saw the big screen like part of their scene design, the music in the background I thought it would be more performance or experimental theater then classical theater supported by the other contemporary forms.

Very soon the first start and the first dialog put us in the story. With the level of french that I know even hard to understand everything I catch the idea of the intro. Modern story, nowadays character living his „normal day life“ and secret part, alter ego connected with historycal character. Day freak in the regular life, musican, thinker..that goes very often deep inside his crazynest. Forensic antropologist reveals a strange discovery that changed his life and his beliefs. Throughout the history of Murdoch Norwegian teenager who can not stop talking, a person afflicted with a transparent vulnerability. He guides as trough the similarity of this guy and look into his own adolescence which resurfaces the ghost of a dream abandoned.

* Press

"Hungry or Assoiffes is one of those essential products that is not coming out unscathed, a kind of grand masterpiece. Why a great vintage? Because we will not soon forget the strong cry that it hears. Because Murdoch, the young rebellious teen, is one of the finest theatrical characters ever seen here. Because the staging of Benoît Vermeulen is stunning [...]. Because the staging of Raymond Marius Boucher is exceptional and that the whole talking to teens in a language that is their and comes to look into what is the revolt." Michel Bélair, Le Devoir, November 21, 2006.




A theater show in a French Quebec style, full of vitality. There is that invisible line between this two stories that are mixed in one..the story of two young mummified bodies found in the St. Lawrence and also the story of two teenagers Murdoch and Norway: in one way when they decides to tell everything or stopping to talk and more adults return to the absurdity of their behavior, the other hidden and silent, locked in their room.

Hmm, et voila, s'est tout. :D

~interactive theater performance

Few months ago I visit interesting theater performance in Metz. It was troupe of actors that before the show collect different topics from the audience.
I've missed that part because I was almost late for the performance.. I catch them few minutes before they start with the rolls. For me it was difficult in the beginning to understand what are they speaking about, I try to hear some words that are familiar to me. My french was bad in that time, not that now is perfect but at least I'm in the learning process for all this months here and I hope that I have a bit of progress.

So, there was one actor who lead the whole performance, he was reading from the papers from the audience and the group had few seconds to invent situation connected with the subject written on the paper. The topics were connected with some celebrities from France, with the history and the politics here. The actors were creating humorist sketches and every next one was even better then the last one. It was not only conversation, dialogs, it was physical theater, pantomime, theater of the absurd, grotesque theater etc..they were mixing all forms of stage performing.








There were people from the audience that sometimes start speaking in the middle of their sketch but the actors in the same moment reinvent the whole situation in a way that they take the information from the person.
It was show in two parts. While they made a break, there was the bar inside the theater so we had a time for a drink also.

They continue in the same way, with a lot of jokes and funny moments. The guider trough the whole performance change more then 30 personalities and the group create about 15 small roll acts in which they use the most sophisticated way to transform in every second in every move. Not a lot of stage design, not a lot from costimography, even the technical team was not so good, they had few sound problems. But I'll never forget the dynamic that they had on the stage, the list of music that they choose and also the was how they combine the stories, mix them and how they make 2 hours and a half show without any problem in a front of every type of audience. I hear that from October they start with new idea, with a new concept, but with the same free style idea so I'll use the first opportunity to go and see them and this time understand bit more. All at all this is show for laughter. And this team have the best skills for making the people happy and with a smile on their faces after watching their show.

Perfect 2 hours and something!

p.s. and on the end, the funny part was that they open the main door from where the audience can go out and basically that was their last roll for the show.