Le Misanthrope

Friday, October 5. If you've been reading these posts every day, you may have to go back a few entries to "catch up." Even though I "published" French Numbering Systems before A Bad Day and Pont des Arts, it shows up as a more recent entry because I started the draft after I had started the others in draft. Complicated.

Camille 10-12. Verbs and vocab. He'll be in Egypt next week.

I go to Alliance Francaise to pay for one more week of classes. I'm enrolled for the class B2.2 until the end of the month but I'm going to take it one week at a time and see how it goes.

I stop in the little bookstore down the street from the AF and find more books in French: Cyrano de Bergerac, Deux Ans de Vacances by Jules Verne and Le Malade Imaginaire (which I have to read before Tuesday, October 30). Also a book of poems (Les Cent Plus Beaux Poemes Pour La Jeunesse). I figure if they are for "La Jeunesse," maybe I'll be able to read them! And two books definitely aimed at young people: Les Deux Nigauds by the Comtesse de Segur and Alice et le chandelier. I notice that there is a whole series of "Alice" books so I look at one of them and darned if it isn't "Nancy Drew" by "Caroline Quine" translated into French!! Only Nancy is named Alice, her father is James Roy, and George is Marion. But Bess is still Bess and Ned is Ned. Since I read literally ALL of the Nancy Drew books growing up, I have to get one!

I continue on to the post office where I make a photocopy of my COBRA election (.10 Euro per page) but I want to mail it with some sort of receipt and the line is too long. I'll try again tomorrow. Take the Metro back to Cite. stop at my neighborhood bakery (Boulangerie Julien) to get lunch: tarte compangnard, eclair pistache. I have that along with the eggplant dish I bought yesterday at the traitteur near the AF. There is just the tiniest bit of curry in the eggplant and it is wonderful. I ring the bell chez Christos to ask Sophie where she gets her hair cut. Read, nap.

Noted on walk:
-A man sweeping leaves on the Place de l'Hotel de Ville with an honest-to-god broom. None of those polluting leaf-blowers here apparently. He works for the Paris "clean-up" department (you can tell because he's wearing the green uniform which matches the color of all their trucks and the garbage "cans" etc). He's one of the ones who change the garbage bags, wash and sweep the streets, battle the graffiti and doggie poop (did you know that the 150,000 dogs in Paris produce 16 tons of waste each day?! however, I notice much less of it on the sidewalks than previously.)
-a very old woman walking down the very long stairs (about 4 flights) in the Cite Metro, despite the availability of an elevator. hmmm. maybe this has something to do with the fact that the overall mortality of the French is so much lower than that of Americans. I've noticed that most people walk UP these stairs too.

Le Misanthrope. I walk to the Theatre Espace Marias and arrive there by 8:30, expecting to pick up my ticket before the performance at 9:00. Turns out there's another show running that started at 7 p.m. so the doors won't even open until 9:00. There's a bunch of us hanging around outside the theatre. four British students attending the Sorbonne for a year, what looks like a group of adolescent French students with their teacher, a few other miscellaneous people and a French man by himself, Daniel. It turns out he's a pharmacist but, in September, he started taking acting lessons at the school attached to the theatre. The production tonight of Le Misanthrope is by the Atelier - which means all the performers are amateurs, not professional actors. So I'm wondering what the quality of the performance will be.

At just about 9:00, the door opens, the audience for the early show leaves, and the "staff" (that would be one young woman and the director himself) sets up a little table just inside the door to sell tickets. This is the box office. After you've paid for your ticket, the young woman shows you to a seat; there are no seat numbers. There are two or three rows of "fauteuils" and a couple of banquettes (it's supposed to seat 130 people but it's hard to believe there are that many seats, it's so tiny). Because of all the students, the house is pretty full.

The seats are right at the edge of the "stage" which is just the floor of the salle. There's no procenium arch, no curtain, no set, not even a chair on stage. The floor is painted black and there are black sheets hung to create the "wings." There's a narrow platform across the back that creates another level (kind of a "second story") for the actors to play from with two ladders leading up to it. Daniel tells me that "backstage" is in fact downstairs! There are many times during the show that I could have reached out and touched the actors.

It is, in a word, fabulous; thrilling even to see so much done with so little. The performances are superb and the entire production is full of tremendous energy. Alceste and Philinte, the two male leads, are excellent and Celimene, the female lead is truly amazing. Three other male roles (all silly marquesses!) are played by women to great effect. The director has adapted the play so all five acts play straight through with no intermission. If I hadn't read the play before coming, I would have been lost but I can follow pretty well, well enough to know that it has been abridged before that's announced at the end. In fact, I was the first person to start clapping because I think I was the only one who knew the last lines of the play! After several bows with hearty applause, "Alceste" introduces the director (and announces that it was he who had adapted the play) and the rest of the cast, then "Celimene" introduces "Alceste." Evidement, there are no programs for this production!

Daniel and I go out for coffee afterwards to talk about the play (he said it was hard even for him to understand - I think Moliere must be somewhat like Shakespeare for us - you appreciate it more if you've read it beforehand). He also says something interesting about Paul, the ubiquitous boulangerie. He doesn't like it because it represents the industrialization of the making of bread to the detriment of individual artisans. Even more tragic than, for example, Borders or Barnes & Noble leading to the demise of independent bookstores, for a book is the same no matter where you buy it, whereas each individual baker produces a different product. For him, there is no difference between Paul and McDonalds. Hmmm. I guess I'll not look at Paul's again in quite the same way (even though, as he acknowledges, they make good bread).

No pedometer reading today because apparently the reset button was stuck and it stayed on "0" the whole day. It seems to be working again now. Weather: cool and sunny in the afternoon. Very pleasant, even walking home at midnight.

The blog system must be on another time zone because I just "published" this entry and it says it was published on Friday, October 5, at 1:12 a.m. when in fact it is Saturday morning at about 9:15. My computer is set to Eastern Daylight Time so it thinks it's Saturday at 3:15 a.m. Go figure.