Oz Puppetry Email Newsletter - Dream Puppets

ON THE ROAD, DECK,
RAILS AND TARMAC
WITH
CIE PHILIPPE GENTY
By Simon T. Rann
Thursday 29/9/11, 10.30am: on the TGV to Paris,
somewhere between Vannes and Rennes
I think Leunig’s Mr Curly would feel very much at home in
this part of the world (Brittany); we never seem to travel on
a straight portion of track (which becomes VERY apparent
when you try to carry two cups of hot tea from the restaurant
carriage, through several other carriages, back to your seat),
and the TGV, capable of barrelling at an astonishing 300km/
h, seems to be rattling no faster than a Melbourne tram;
apparently there’s an antiquated law in Brittany that
prevents the government from building freeways here, but I
wouldn’t be surprised to find that the law in fact states that
they can’t build anything, from houses to train lines and
roads, with straight lines. It is in fact a blessing, as well as a
curse.
Two more shows behind us, performed in Vannes. These
were our first shows in Brittany, and there is only one other
scheduled (for Lorient, March 2012), which is unusual
because Philippe and Mary live here, in Quimperlé, and
there are usually more performances in the region. The
theatre in Vannes was big, modern and very comfortable, but
the acoustics were strangely flat, or ‘matte’ as our sound
technician says. The fact that the theatre was only half full
both nights made the ‘matte-ness’ seem ‘matte-r’, but it
didn’t matter, the shows were good anyway and we had
terrific feedback. We seem finally to have found our rhythm
again after the summer break.
Friday 7/10/11, 7.30pm: on the train from Trondheim to
Oslo, Norway
The 30 th of September we played Nogent sur Marne, in the
banlieue of Paris (south-east of the centre). When I
recognised the exterior of the theatre (it’s a particularly ugly
60’s or 70’s glass and concrete construction that shares a
wall with a railway bridge), I realised that I’d played there
before. The show went very well and the audience were
unexpectedly responsive: I say ‘unexpectedly’ because
anywhere in Paris, the centre or the banlieue, the public are
usually warm, appreciative (some, like my girlfriend, might
dispute this), but also intelligent and critical; it takes a lot to
get them fired up, in either direction, because they are an
educated audience that sees a lot theatre, but once they are
fired up they like to let you know. I’ve seen a full house in
the grand Théâtre de la Ville standing, booing and shouting
abuse - intelligent abuse, but abuse nonetheless - almost
rioting during one particular show, and apparently it’s not
unusual. It wouldn’t happen in Australia. In fact I can’t
think of anywhere else in the world where something like
this would not be unusual, as it isn’t in France.
Last night we played in Verdal, which is a very small town
about an hour and a half west of Trondheim (Norway’s
second biggest town) by train. Verdal has a relatively new
and alternative (for Norway) theatre school that is part of a
larger university college called HINT. When Jacques Lecoq
died in 1999, one of his long-standing and highly respected
professors, Sandra Mladenovitch, took the unexpected
decision to leave the famous L'École Internationale de
Théâtre Jacques Lecoq -whose previous students include the
likes of Mummenschanz, Julie Taymor, Steven Berkoff, and
our own Geoffery Rush - to accept an offer to work at the
fledgling HINT theatre school, started by a former student of
hers, in Verdal. Philippe Genty had a long and professionally
stimulating relationship with Lecoq and took several of his
former students into the company. The HINT theatre school
has a policy of inviting teachers with specific skills and
directors with a specific vision to teach workshops to the
students or create a project with them. In 2008 the school
approached Philippe and Mary to teach. Philippe is not
interested in working with students, preferring to work with
professionals, so the company organised for myself and two
others to teach a workshop in France for five weeks to the
second year students in place of Philippe and Mary. The
workshop culminated in a performance that was staged
firstly in Nevers, and then in Paris, Oslo and Verdal. The
workshop and performance were a fantastic success, and
ever since the school has maintained a relationship with the
company and has organised several other workshops and
performances with us. In fact Philippe was in Verdal (doing
some preliminary work with students with whom he will be
remounting one of his old shows, Forget Me Not, next year)
when he had his stroke, and he and Mary were there with us
until this morning. The school has also started a festival of
visual theatre, the Internasjonal Festival for Visuell
Scenekunst. I think the intention is that their festival will
eventually become part of the Effervescence festival
(Philippe and the MCNN’s visual theatre festival in Nevers)
circuit. We were in Verdal, although in fact we played a few
kilometres away in Indereuil, for the festival. It was
probably the most enthusiastic audience I have ever played
for in my life; from the very beginning they were laughing
and responding to almost every little thing we did.
Norwegians are a very warm and very responsive audience
in general, but the addition of all the students and teachers
from HINT seemed to magnify this by a factor of ten.
Poster for the
Internasjonal
Festival for
Visual
Scenekunst,
Verdal, with
image from
Voyageurs
Immobiles