The action takes place on the first landing of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. "Look, an ostrich", says gramaphone number two. "Golly ! A dispatch",
says gramaphone number one. A photographer then tries to take a
picture
of a couple who have wed that day. A series of characters appears.
Only the gramaphones speak. Cocteau wrote this unmatched surrealist
theatrical exercise in 1921. In it is found one of his key phrases, "As these
mysteries are beyond me, let's pretend to have arranged them."
This work, so French in spirit, is revisited - without altering a single word
-
by a team of actors from Reunion Island, Namibia and France. Cocteau
fantasies get a new lease of life in the imagination of the South.
Consciously or not, the poet sowed here and there, references to Africa.
Taking these fantasies literally, these actors from the Indian Ocean island
of Reunion, re-invent the Eiffel Tower, its inhabitants and transposes
them all into the Namibian desert. Two civilisations collide harmoniously
in a show that is as musical as at the time it was created and probably
more physical in style than on that evening in 1921 where Les Mariés de
la Tour Eiffel left the bourgeois public wondering.
Distribution
stage direction Vincent Colin
Phono 1 : Stéphane Vallé
Phono 2 : Nathalie Fillion
La Mariée : Victoria Benyamin
Le Marié : Didier Ibao
Le Beau-Père : Saul Kamure
La Belle-Mère : Elisabeth Nepembe
Le Directeur de la Tour Eiffel, Le Marchand d'Art Simon Simeon
Le Chasseur : Steven Afrikaner
Le Photographe : Sébastien Lefrancois
L'Autruche, la Baigneuse de Trouville
La Cycliste : Theresa Kahorongo
Le Général : Sidney Gurirab
Le Collectionneur, un Garçon d'honneur : Karl Pietersen
Le Lion, une demoiselle d'honneur : Diana Jaarsak
L'Enfant Manfred : Shikongo Namalenga ou Adriano Taristas
Une chanteuse, une demoiselle d'honneur :
Chamaritha Van Der Westhuizen
Un chanteur : Banana Shekupe
Assisted by : Stéphane Vallé
Music composed by : Georges Auric, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc and Germaine Tailleferre
Orchestration : Marius Constant
With : Orchestre régional de la Réunion
Conductor : Philippe Nahon
Choreography : Sébastien Lefrancois and Banana Shekupe
Vocals : Bonnie Pereko and Banana Shekupe
Lighting : Denis Désanglois
Costumes : Beata Hamelwaet Térésa Small
Production
Coproduction : Centre dramatique de l'Océan Indien-théâtre national de Namibie
Avec le soutien du : Centre culturel franco-namibien, du ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, du ministère des Affaires étrangères, du secrétariat d'état à l'Outre-Mer, du département et de la région Réunion
Avec le concours de : l'Adami et de la Spedidam