I went to see it's last performance in Lyon yesterday evening at the Célestins theatre, which is one of the most beautiful theatres in France and, indeed, the whole of Europe. First built in the late 1700s it was rebuilt after a fire and inaugurated in 1877. Here's a photo of it I took yesterday before the play began.
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| The Célestins theatre, Lyon France |
As the theatre has French technical staff and the play's actors and technical staff are mainly British I was asked by the theatre to work as an English-French interpreter for them. My job was to be on hand in case the French and British set, lighting, sound and other staff needed linguistic help to explain how to unload the set and props, set it all up, and explain the (very complex) costume changes to the theatre's French wardrobe staff, who would be helping the actors during performances.
I am by no means a theatre critic so I'll keep this short, but I would like to say a few words about last night's performance. It was quite simply stunning. This English-language production came courtesy of international theatre company Cheek By Jowl and it was directed by Declan Donnellan. Morbid, full of "gallows humour" as one of the actors put it to me after the performance, violent, tender, threatening and full of foreboding, my eyes were riveted to the action from start to finish. Incest is a difficult subject to work with even today, but I was pleased to see that Donnellan has chosen a deliberately stark and uncompromising approach which I find both daring and creative.
The Célestins being a classical theatre designed to help voices resonate, the dialogue was both percussive and seductive due to the excellent voice projection of the actors in this cast. There are many powerful moments and performances in this play, but if forced to mention just one I would say that I was particularly struck by the compelling and authoritative presence of Hedydd Dylan's 'Hippolita'. In one scene her mood changed from vicious to ironic to loving to threatening and back again in less than a minute. She was breathtaking. The audience's applause at the end was a fitting tribute to this excellent production and they offered the cast no less than seven encores, which is something I, who have seen many plays here, have rarely seen before.
I had to go onstage afterwards in case they needed me during their preparations to take down the set and load the truck, but was pleasantly surprised to see that the two crews had developed such a good understanding of each other over the five days they had worked together that I was rarely called upon.
So off to the theatre's bar I went, where I chatted with a couple of the actors and happened to bump into Hedydd Dylan. When I told her what I thought of her performance she looked almost surprised. "Really?" she said, "I thought I was a little under par because I have been feeling rather tired today."
It had been a privilege to be able to add my tiny contribution to this play's five-day run in Lyon and both the crew and the performers were friendly, open, chatty and elegantly modest. It had been a pleasure to meet them.
I climbed into my taxi to go home and on the way I remembered Dylan's words and thought to myself "well if that's what she's like when she's tired, she must be devastating when she's on top form."
To say that this play comes highly-recommended would be an understatement.
('Tis Pity She's a Whore' will be playing in Nantes in a few days and if you happen to live in the area I would strongly recommend that you go and see it. More info on Cheek By Jowl's website.)
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Here a few more photos of the theatre;
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| The Célestins theatre, Lyon France |
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| The Célestins theatre, Lyon France |
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| The Célestins theatre, Lyon France |
Excellent evening to one and all.
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