Survivors of a Mad Hope

The sublime new production by "le celebre et extraordinaire" Theatre du Soleil

at their beautiful home in the Vincennes forest on the outskirts of Paris.  La Cartoucherie: old ammunitions factories turned into a village of avant-guard theatre.we were fortunate to be able to see the production with our friend the magnificent director Dominique Serrand, Founder and Artistic Director of Minneapolis' Theatre de la Jeune Lune. Dominique and Soleil's famous leader Anne Neuschäfer are both contemporaries of Jacques Lecoq.  Anne takes tickets at every show.The 35 actors of Soleil cook and serve the most exquisite dinner to the audience before the show.  All company members are paid equally and fulfill all duties of the theatre together.You can peak into the troupe preparing before the performance.These pictures are during intermission when the are setting up for the second half of the 3 hour and 40 minute production.  The actors stay in character here and it is like watching a small performance in itself. The play opens in early 1914 at the dawn of Europe’s descent into autocratic turmoil. Félix, the proud owner of a Parisian ‘guingette’ called “Le Fol Espoir”, harbours a breakaway film crew in the bar’s dusty attic. Led by director Jean la Palette, the socialist splinter group – formerly workers in a national film company – put the new refuge straight to use. Jean rallies bar staff and crew alike to work on a film (silent of course) that chronicles the voyage of European migrants as they set sail from Cardiff in 1895 in search of new utopian beginnings.  So we watch actors film silent film sequences, with the actors performing all the special effects that would make a cinematic image believable but at the same time we are seeing everything outside of the frame and magnificent set changes that are turned into epic long sequences.  For example one scene opens with a model ship about 2 feet high, actors are on the ground holding lamps and others are holding fans and others are generating smoke and and the model is pushed around on stage and as that is ending in the background the "to scale" ship is being erected with a giant sail and mast and a performer is hanging on for his dear life in an tremendous storm.