The Green Bird

Carlo Gozzi.

Programming / Play – comedy.

You’ve probably noticed that there’s been a bit of a lack of creation on stage in the last few months – at least in France and certainly at home.
So it’s been months since I’ve set foot in a theatre – and since we’re modern, I haven’t even set foot backstage either, it’s working virtually – well… it’s the most absurd work I’ve ever done – we all think we’re Penelope, come on, my beautiful one, weave your canvas and don’t forget to undo it at night.

So, I’m searching in my memory what beautiful shows I’ve seen and would like to see again – and especially who I’d like to see working again to present us with breathtaking shows.

In the theatre category, we had the incredible staging of The Green Bird by Laurent Pelly & Theatre de la Cite CDN Toulouse.
It wasn’t just a little beer, their work.
The technicians arrived more than ten days ahead of time, two monster trucks took the whole parking lot at the back and there it was – all the technicians, theirs and ours, had to set up the stage: a leaning stage – with ups, downs, holes, slopes
And totally monumental decors
And after that, guys, don’t forget to place the lights correctly – you have the technical plans, right? Yes it will be easy.

I like very – very much – to see the work beforehand.
And now that I’m starting to get white hair (I found at least 15 – it’s a nuclear disaster and nobody cares) – so now that I have experience – I know – like all technicians do – at the time of assembly, whether the part will be excellent or not at all.
My buddies showed me the different technical plans they get – and so … it’s unforgiving, the jokers, the intellectuals at the sock-fastener level, the ones who think they’re geniuses: salute madam, lower, even lower – technical plans don’t lie when you know how to read them.

When they got the technical plans for The Green Bird, they were excited like fleas discovering a very greasy mouse with a clean coat. Those were my days off, I wasn’t supposed to go and see it – and I went because they didn’t even ask me: You go and see it, and shut up and we’ll discuss it tomorrow at lunchtime in the catering.
I went to see that.
I was amazed. But amazed.
And I took the dessert back to the catering – my buddies are greedy.

The director comes from the Opera: so he’s used to set designs that send you to the moon before you’ve even realized that you’re no longer in your seat.

And the story… it’s Commedia dell’arte – it’s more or less the continuation of the story of the 3 oranges – so it’s a canvas – precise – the characters are fake – the fake of the commedia – fake, but deep .

Remember the story of the 3 oranges? The prince was so sad, so sad – and bewitched, here he was looking for3 oranges – falling in love with them – and here are our oranges that became women – All ends well, two of the lovers die and morals are saved.
Marriage – paf. The mother-in-law is green with rage, too bad for her.
End of the story.

There they became King and Queen. They have twins, a boy and a girl : Rino – Barbarina – Splendours. And it’s war – Daddy is leaving. Mom stays with her babies and stepmother. Mother-in-law, who is an old, well-built log, takes advantage of this to bewitch her daughter-in-law and send her to spend her life in a hole under a sink.
You will notice that the old woman has imagination in perversion.
As for the twins, hop, sent to the delicatessen.
And the daughter-in-law has bad luck – an orange, a sink – will she be okay?

It’s going very well for granny. The war lasts 19 years. Nineteen years under a sink, do you think there’s anything left of our pretty orange princess who became queen and mother?
The twins, Barbarina & Rino, – they were too beautiful. The butchers adopted them for their children –
But 19 years later, these ungrateful brats don’t like the job of butcher and they prefer to read, think, philosophize, paint –
Sent back they are. Screw the kids.

And that’s where the story of the Green Bird begins.
Daddy comes back from the war. Ooooh the pretty 19-years-old girl he meets by chance, when he thought he couldn’t recover from the death of his dear orange wife. Well, she’s his daughter – but he doesn’t know it.

On the path of the children (well, of the children – of 19 years old) there will be everything: statues that talk, apples that sing, water that dances, a statuesque and talkative philosopher like an old magpie – and of course a green bird that came out of nowhere – well, he came out of a hole under a sink – how strange, how curious.

And we look at that and we are delighted – absolutely delighted.
Enchanted by the staging which amplifies everything the text proposes to the maximum.
Enchanted by action ideas that are totally zany
Enchanted by these bad guys who don’t scare anyone because they are really too dumb.
Enchanted by these children who look at the adults and say : are they fine, is that responsible adults? It will be fine for us, we won’t do worse !

So this show – as I saw it – as I saw what this director was capable of – I tell you: I keep him in my little papers and I want to see his work again.

And not only do I want to see his future work, but I also want his work to be associated with the themes of the Fool, the madness, the joy and casualness found in so many video games.

& since I don’t have anything else to think about right now – I think he’d be a perfect guy to put together an oversized adaptation of a show related to the e.sport tournament that would be randomly posted on …. … Beyond Good & Evil 2 – for example. You can also tell me that a show like this one wouldn’t work at all with Virtual Reality Experiences – that of Derision in particular – but I wouldn’t be convinced.

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Featured Image : from The Green Bird – by Laurent Pelly & CDN Toulouse.