Pelleas and Mélisande
Pelléas et Mélisande , by Maurice Maeterlinck, is not easy to stage: forests, caves, the sea and a castle serve a medieval atmosphere. At Ateliers Berthier, Julie Duclos transforms the chateau into a contemporary house. To introduce the characters, she summons the XXL video. Golaud (Vincent Dissez) discovers Mélisande (Alix Riemer) lost in the forest. They will get married. Then we follow Pelléas (Matthieu Sampeur) accompanying Mélisande in a cave. Julie Duclos worked an ethereal whole to better focus on the text. Sublime, the lights help to express the anxieties of the hidden lovers and the interrogations of the betrayed husband. All seek clarity, physical or intimate. If the use of video seems judicious at the start, it prevents the actors from inscribing continuity in their game. Hence this feeling of distance even when the house is split in two to get closer to the public. The love between Pelléas and Mélisande thus remains unclear. There remain the interior silences of Mélisande, sufficient to create uninterrupted tension.
»Until March 21 at the Workshops (17th).
Julie Duclos worked an ethereal whole to better focus on Maurice Maeterlinck's text. Simon Gollelin
The Innocents, Me and the Unknown on the side of the departmental road
What is it about? On a road that does not come more from somewhere than it ends up at a specific place. In a setting reminiscent of a cracked and squatted Hopper (see head photo) - the road cracks and a Bus shelter has been diverted from its original object to become a sort of hut. The actors (all excellent, of admirable abnegation, notably Gilles Privat) say their text, and it is at this point that the work of Alain Françon, the director, becomes very complicated. A staging is not indeed a boa responsible for swallowing a text too large for it.
Read also: The review in full on Le Figaro Premium
Read also: Peter Handke, still the storm?
For this show, Peter Handke shot an intertextual firework. Its text, too indigestible, makes one think of a massive artillery preparation for a ground offensive which will not take place, because the subject is never conclusive, always open on a next stage of metaphysical wandering. It is a very rich and generous text, but which has only enigmas to share.
»Until March 29 at the Théâtre de la Colline (20th).
All naked
Mr. Ventroux has ambitions and the wind is on the rise. Freshly elected MP, he is now running for the Ministry of the Navy. It's summer. Clarisse Ventroux dies of hot. She runs all of Paris to represent her husband. Its unique function ... With the company Ex Voto à la Lune, Émilie Anna Maillet takes a risky gamble: mixing Feydeau's comic genius with the psychosocial writings (much less funny) of Lars Norén. The wacky and the austere therefore meet against a background of anachronisms. In a state-of-the-art apartment, Georges Clemenceau calls in FaceTime. Victor, the valet, plays drums in the middle of the living room. The mayor of Trifouilly-les-Oies comes to dispute the end of fat. A zealous journalist harasses the couple for a few images. It is too much for Clarisse who ends up undressing entirely. From an invisible and overwhelmed woman, Madame Ventroux becomes a feminist heroine when all of her little people (literally) go downhill. Refreshing!
»Until March 21 at the Paris-Villette theater (19th).
From an invisible and overwhelmed woman, Madame Ventroux becomes a feminist heroine when all of her little people (literally) go downhill. Maxime Lethelier
Room with a view
An experience that bears the seal of the new direction of the Châtelet: renewing old forms by making them with contemporary ingredients. Here, DJ Rone, who shines in the repertoire of electro music. And the Ballet de Marseille under the leadership of choreographers from the collective La Horde. The subject? Young dancers at a rave party in a marble quarry as the world collapses. What will the whole look like? Difficult to say ... The resumption of the Marseille ballet, then in a fairly critical state, by artists more marked by the show than by contemporary or classical dance is a gamble. We hope that this new direction will have enabled him to find an identity. On stage the 18 dancers will express what has become of this ballet, since Roland Petit created it some forty years ago, and made it the second French company.
»Until March 14 at the Théâtre du Châtelet (4th).
Labiche repetita
On the slopes of the Butte Montmartre, two evenings a week, Coralie Lascoux, 18 years of self-production in the backpack, stages a Labiche. La Main Leste , a comedy-vaudeville in one act. But rather than starting with the first scene, his play begins half an hour before the curtain rises, while the actors tumble backstage, gasping and disillusioned. The one who saw Celimene playing maids; another who imagined himself in Aiglon must play the old men. Everyone, however, remains hopeful that he will soon tutor Michalik and invite Vuillermoz to his table. It's just a matter of time. In time, the company "Hope gives life" just lack. A few minutes before the curtain rises, an actress misses the call, which is replaced by the devil by the stage manager. More serious, the door supposed to slam remains stuck, which is annoying for a vaudeville… All that feels the lived like the epoisses feels the feet. It is skilfully bundled and superlatively interpreted…
»Until March 30 at the Funambule Montmartre (18th arrondissement).
Rather than starting with the first scene, his play begins half an hour before the curtain rises, while the actors tumble backstage, gasping and disillusioned. Funambule Montmartre Theater
Of mice and Men
There is George. The little. Malignant. He is flanked by Lenny, his galley brother, a big colossus with short ideas. A real cinema couple. Both roam the roads in search of work. Their journey in the early 1930s heralds The Grapes of Anger . On stage, Thierry Bilisko alone embodies the two accomplices. Accompanied by the country music of a live artist (Éric Nemo), he abandons the road trip part of the novel to focus on the behind closed doors of a ranch. George and Lenny dream of a small farm with rabbits there. Hope keeps them standing. Destiny, more cruel, takes the form of an attractive dancer who does not say a word. We know the end, it is terrible. And Bilisko proves that he has the chest to carry all of humanity from Steinbeck's masterpiece.
»Until March 15 at the Lucernaire (6th).
On stage, Thierry Bilisko alone embodies the two accomplices of Steinbeck's novel. Chloé Fidanzi
Do I have a mouth of Arletty?
Éric Bu and Élodie Menant conceived a musical show removed, funny and full of nostalgia on the eventful life of the singer who launched with his banter of Parisian titi: "Do I have a mouthful of atmosphere," to Louis Jouvet in the legendary Hôtel du Nord by Marcel Carné. Johanna Boyé's twirling staging, string performance, a must see.
»Until May 10 at Petit Montparnasse (14th).
Read also: Arletty takes us to paradise