The French Journal

The Molières honor this year's best in French theatre

The Molières, the French equivalent to the Tony Awards, were given out last night in Paris, and they had a decidedly American flavor. The best musical award went to Le Roi Lion, that is, The Lion King, a French language recreation of the New York/Disney smash. And the best director award went to actor John Malkovich for his work on the play Good Canary.

Winning for best drama was La Vie devant soi, based on a novel by Romain Gary which had also served as the source for the well-known Simone Signoret film, Madame Rosa. The lead actress in the play, Myriam Boyer, was honored for her work. Boyer is the mother of French film star Clovis Cornillac, himself a nominee this year for a Molière for his role in L'Hôtel du libre-échange; Cornillac lost, however, to veteran French actor Michel Galabru, who starred in Les Chaussettes - opus 124.

A complete list of winners is available on Le Monde. If you want to try out your French, here's Galabru's acceptance speech.

At the theater: A Chekhov fish and Lagarce

I love the theater, but the French drama scene is mostly a mystery to me, which is why I appreciate articles like a recent one in Bloomberg about some new attractions on the Parisian stage. First up is Fish Love, adapted from some short stories by Anton Chekhov, about the impossible love of a carp for a young girl. It all ends tragically -- how could it not? -- but at least not at the dinner table with lemon and butter. A few other stories surround the central tale. While it may not sound promising, Bloomberg's reviewer suggests that it is "the most enchanting thing on the Paris stage."

He also tells about Juste la fin de la monde/Just the End of the World, written by Jean-Luc Lagarce. As is too often the case, Lagarce, the author of twenty five plays, died at a young age, and an appreciation of his work did not happen until after his death. The story of a young man who goes home to tell his family that he's dying, Juste la fin has had two recent productions; the one under review here is at the Comédie Française. For those of us who can speak French, however, there is a video preview below from a version from last fall, and you can learn more about Lagarce (and see more excerpts) on a website devoted to him.

Who is Guignol?

A familiar scene from movies about France: children gathered in front of a puppet show, usually in the Luxembourg Gardens. This week's Boston Globe tells all about Guignol, the puppet clown, who is the star of these productions, and who is celebrating his 200th birthday. Guignol is the creation of a silk-worker in Lyon, Laurent Mourguet, who used to extract teeth and used the shows to distract his clients. His legacy creation lives on, anarchic and irreverent; along the way, he may even lead his audience to sing a song or two.

The Globe feature is part of a bigger sequence about Paris and kids; while obviously of interest to travelers, there's more about native Parisian children than is usual for this type of story. Also, the satiric puppet show, The Guignols, owes some of its heritage to Guignol, but take care to note the differences. At the head of this post is a three minute documentary about one of Guignol theaters in the Buttes Chaumont (not directly related to The Globe article) which allows you to sample (and to smile).

Fanny Ardant directs

For our next film related item, megastar Fanny Ardant, who was Francois Truffaut's final love and the star of his last films, is taking a turn as a stage director. Bloomberg reports that Ardant has overseen a production of Veronique, a 1898 operetta by Andre Messager, at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris. While the French do not necessarily share America's love of musical comedy, they like operetta. The Bloomberg reporter, however, suggests that despite the apparent audience appreciation of this spectacle, which is a rondelay of hidden identities and romantic confusions, Ardant's direction is "uninspired," and the humor sometimes coarse.

Paris theater trucs, including a pope and the Lido

Let's make it a trio of Paris posts today with a triple decker of theater trucs:

• First up, the Sydney Morning Herald challenges the notion that London is for theater and Paris is for food with this brief article about the successful restaging in Paris of a couple of Broadway shows, namely Cabaret and The Lion King (which required that a theater be renovated in order to accommodate it).
• Next, a male reporter for CBS News heads backstage at the Lido, a club famous for semi-nude dancers. It's a benign visit, with the intrepid journalist really interested in the career choices made by the young women who work there (a surprising number of whom are British because French women are typically not tall enough to meet the Lido's 5' 9" height requirement).
• And now, in a really awkward transition, let's move from dancing ladies to a pope. N'Ayez Pas Peur/Don't Be Afraid is a theatrical spectacle about Pope John Paul II cooked up by Robert Hossein, who last year staged a live re-creation of Ben-Hur's chariot race at the Stade de France. Hossein's pieces are not usually acclaimed for their intellectual content; instead, they try to wow you. There's a promo video for the show at the head of this post.

Truc: Le Cabaret des hommes perdu

On Broadway this weekend, the Tony Awards will be given out. A fortnight ago, I wrote about Les Molières, which the French awards recognizing the tops in Paris theater, and named as "best musical" was Le Cabaret des hommes perdu (The Cabaret of Lost Men), a gay-themed show. I included a clip in the post, but since then I've come across a site that has everything you always wanted to know about the show, including more videos. So if theater is your interest, or gay French things are your interest, or gay French theater things are your interest, this one's for you.

Les Molières honor the best in French theater

Les Molières are the French equivalent to the Tony Awards in the U.S. or, I suppose, the Oliviers in the U.K. The big winners (Yahoo/AFP/fr) this year were announced yesterday; they included a production of Cyrano de Bergerac, which was put on by the famed troupe, la Comédie-Française, and which took home six awards. Le Cabaret des hommes perdus/The Cabaret of Lost Men, a gay-themed show with comic and melodramatic elements, was recognized as the best musical. Most of the awardees are unfamiliar to me, but you can view a full list of them (in French) after the jump.

Here is an advertisement for Les Cabaret des hommes perdus; it's in French, and there's brief nudity and mature material (if you understand the language).

Paris Cabaret: Bobin'o

Let's remember that Paris isn't just about beauty, style, and history; there's also glitz. Bloomberg reports today on the recent opening of Bobin'o, a new cabaret in Montparnasse in the tradition of the Lido, the Moulin Rouge, and the Crazy Horse. Bobin'o features a typical mix of buxom beauties, drag queens, and novelty acts. Since the article is from Bloomberg, the business news network, you'll read about the financial details behind the operations; faltering for awhile, these shows are working their way back to major profitability. (The owners of the Moulin Rouge will be grateful to Buz Luhrman's movie for a long time.) The Bobin'o site is appropriately splashy; and there's a long video that gives you a sense of the place, even if it was shot and edited with a minimum of finesse.

NYT: The International Visual Theatre and its star

A play, K. Lear, which tells the story of King Lear with an emphasis on Cordelia, sold out its brief run in Paris. What made this show unique was that it was performed in French sign language, a production of the International Visual Theatre. In an article in the New York Times, Alan Riding tells of the troup's history, and of its co-director and star, Emmanuelle Laborit. (Free registration may be required.) Laborit, who is deaf, became a star on the Paris stage after her performance in the French version of Children of a Lesser God.

An interesting note. Until the early nineties, the instruction of sign language was banned in France for reasons grounded in religion (the rationale: how do you express God in sign language?) and a belief that it would isolate deaf people.

Trucs: Crowe's Bad Annee, Holidays, Josephine Baker, Adopt a Truffle

That movie post (below) was complicated, so today's other post will be a few brief trucs.

• The Russell Crowe movie, A Good Year, has opened in France, where it fared no better with critics than it did in English-speaking countries. As this AP wire story reports, a sample review from Liberation called it "appalling from start to finish." Bottom line: too many cliches about France, stereotypes.
• And now for something completely different: Need a list of French legal holidays for 2007? Expatica has it, along with other important dates, such as when the World Cup will be played in Nantes (for them that likes that kind of thing).
• It's Josephine Baker's 100th birthday, and an extravaganza in Paris celebrates the event. To learn more, read Charles Bremner (again) in The Times (London), or Alan Riding (again) in The Times (New York, via The International Herald Tribune).
• In the states you can adopt a highway; in France, you can adopt a truffle tree. (And that's why I love France.) Learn about it here. (And yes, I know truffles don't grow on trees.)