The Parisians

Aurélien is handsome, young, smart, arrogant, and fascinating. As a writer and director, he wants to conquer the world through theatre, starting with Paris. Moving from cocktail party to brothel, he intrigues everyone. A host of characters with influence in the world of culture and no regard for actual art flock to his side... Tormented by their insatiable need for power, they succumb to the fads that govern the city of lights. Beyond this microcosm that believes it can be Everything in plain sight, another much more disreputable milieu attracts Aurélien. There, he meets people and names who quickly come to fill his orgiastic nights, dreaming of reinventing society through love and sex: Iris, Serena, Kamel, Gilda... In this carnival, a metaphor for the collapse of politics, only Lucas, a dark and tormented poet who could be his complete opposite, seems to share his desire for absolutes. “One of them thought that by losing everything he would save the light, the other that by winning everything he would anger the heavens,” writes Olivier Py. With this whirlwind of a show, which drags its characters through a vibrant city that devours everyone and everything, the director returns to the great themes that come back time and again in his work: theatre, God, sex, death, freedom, and power... A human comedy at once epic, lyrical, and funny.

Text, direction Olivier Py
Stage design, costumes, makeup Pierre-André Weitz
Lights Bertrand Killy
Sound Rémi Berger Spirou

With Jean Alibert, Moustafa Benaïbout, Laure Calamy, Céline Chéenne, Emilien Diard-Detoeuf, Guilhem Fabre, Joseph Fourez, Philippe Girard, Mireille Herbstmeyer, François Michonneau

Production Festival d'Avignon
Co-production Théâtre de Liège
With the support of Adami and Spedidam for the 71st edition of the Festival d'Avignon
Artistic residence la FabricA du Festival d'Avignon

Les Parisiens by Olivier Py is published by Editions Actes Sud.