Jean Philippe Davodeau turns crêpes on stage and asks why the langue bretonne his grandparents spoke was never passed down to him. The question sends him to psychanalyse and sociologie to work out what happened au pays. What comes back is a cabaret conférence that keeps slipping out of his hands into situations with no sense in them. Two comédiens chanteurs hold the stage with him, Bob Simon among them.
Tag: theatre
Hatiao Club: Azou’s secret cabaret, Plouzané
Azou kept a club nobody in her family knew about, and at her death her three grandchildren push its door open on the eve of the funeral. What they find is a cabaret, played by Cie La Lavée in song and spoken récit over an omelette and bread and butter. Mathilde Martinage built it from interviews and collected testimony, so the fiction carries real Breton voices. The Centre culturel François Mitterrand at Plouzané takes it from ten years up.
Tout est bon dans Le Breton !, a bigoudène duel
Maiween and Marie-Yvonne are billed as the last two bigoudènes of their region, and they are fighting over the right to carry l’esprit bigouden to the ONU. The Comédie du Finistère sets the quarrel on the small port of Guilvinec, where the pair feed Kouign-Amann to the gulls. It gets settled by contests: the sturdiest crêpe, a Gavotte danced in the Fest-Noz, the biggest haul of bigorneaux. The company signs the result a comédie armoricaine.
Les Théâtrales du Kreiz Breizh
Eight shows travel three communes of the Kreiz Breizh: Gouarec, Rostrenen and St Gilles Pligeaux. The programme is théâtre populaire, open to the amateur companies of the region, and comédie holds a settled place in it. One session, Attroupons-nous, hands a salle des fêtes to troupes of the Centre-Bretagne, who introduce themselves or play an extract of a creation in progress. Every aesthetic and every language is welcome there, at any stage.
Les 2 Lucioles : George Sand, une plume à soi
Les 2 Lucioles, a professional theatre company, turns George Sand’s correspondence into a staged reading. The chosen letters pass between the novelist and Musset, Michel de Bourges, Maurice Sand, Victor Hugo and Flaubert. The reading treats that correspondence as her major work, ahead of La Mare au Diable, Indiana and La petite Fadette. Berry is marking 150 years since the death of its Berrichonne writer, and Moulins-sur-Céphons takes its turn.
Les Maîtres Sonneurs: illustrated musical reading
Les Maîtres Sonneurs becomes an illustrated musical reading at Théâtre Maurice Sand in La Châtre. Géraldine Gallois adapts George Sand’s novel and composes its music. Olivier Chéné supplies the illustrations, while Manu Tourny plays Centre-France bagpipes. Tiennet, Joseph and Brulette inhabit a peasant world shaped by work and popular dances. The production pays tribute to Sand and traditional music.
George Sand et ses hôtes à Nohant
Rythme et Expression ends each year with a staged tribute to an author, after evenings built around Boris Vian, Colette, Charles Aznavour and Marcel Pagnol. This time the subject is George Sand, 150 years after her death. The show covers the span of that life, and it plays at Nohant-Vic, the village where Sand spent most of hers. It sits inside the commemoration the Indre and the Cher devote to the writer of the Berry. Admission is free.
Fantaisie Lunarienne : Maurice Sand, marionnettiste
Maurice Sand illustrated, wrote, chased insects and built a marionette theatre of his own, yet he stayed behind the name of his mother, George Sand. A comedienne and a puppeteer set three tableaux in which levels of reality collide. Letters, exchanges and excerpts from his plays feed a friendly argument about the absent man. The puppet answers the actress line for line, and Cormery hosts the encounter.
Ferrières-en-Gâtinais: Medieval Streets and Living Crafts
Ferrières-en-Gâtinais approaches its heritage through performance, guided exploration and encounters with makers. A theatrical promenade and bell-tower visit sit alongside a trail of clues and a tour of the medieval town. Houses and gardens open their doors, while master glassmaker Sophie Berecz welcomes visitors to her studio, connecting historic streets with a craft still practised there.
Lignières: Women Artists and the Journée du Matrimoine
Women artists receive the attention of the Journée du Matrimoine at Les Bains-Douches in Lignières. An exhibition shares the programme with an unusual literary tour, readings and improvised theatre. Conceived as a counterpart to the Journées du Patrimoine, the gathering uses these different forms to give women’s creative contributions a more visible place in cultural memory.