A HOUSE BATH (UN BAIN DE MENAGE)
et
MADAME'S LATE MOTHER (FEU, LA MERE DE MADAME)
de Georges FEYDEAU
APRES LE SUCCES DE MADAME'S LATE MOTHER EN 2008,
Echange Theatre a traduite Un Bain de Menage de Georges Feydeau.
Ces deux nouvelles traductions sont aussi des Premieres en Angleterre !
Deux farces par le maitre absolu de la comedie !
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Mise en scene de Samuel Miller et Gael Colin
Les 14, 15, 16, 17 et 18 Juillet 2009.
TABARD THEATRE 2 Bath Road
London
W4 1LW
Box Office: 08448 472 264
Madame's Late Mother: A 4 heures du matin. Une dispute: elle voulait dormir, il rentre d'une soiree festive (Deguise en Louis XIV !) Soudain on sonne a la porte...
A House Bath: La nuit, Madame veut prendre un bain, qui lui est prepare par la bonne. Quand Madame change d'avis, la bonne decide qu'elle prendra ce bain tout pret ! Et Monsieur rentre a ce moment la...
Deux classiques du boulevard Francais bases sur les plus simples malentendus.
Georges Feydeau est le fils illegitime de Napoléon III et d'une actrice mais fut eduque par le peintre Feydeau. Tres jeune, il neglige l'ecole pour le theatre. Inspire par Maxim’s, le Cancan, La Belle Epoque, il a ecrit des chefs d'oeuvre du Vaudeville comme La puce a l'oreille et Le Dindon, notamment, se moquant des moeurs bourgeois. Georges Feydeau fit rire la France avec ses comedies de Boulevard a l'aube du premier conflit mondial. Il a ainsi domine le genre. Certains voient dans Feydeau un precurseur du Dadaisme, du surrealisme, et de l'absurde. Malgre un succes phenomenal, sa propension a vivre au dessus de ses moyens ( il avait une table reservee en permanence chez Maxim's), le jeu et l'echec de son mariage l'amenerent a des difficultes financieres. En hiver 1918, Feydeau contracta la syphilis et sombra progressivement dans la folie pour le reste de sa vie. Il est mort le 5 Juin 1921 et est enterre a Montmartre. En 1941, Feu, la mere de Madame fut sa premiere piece a entrer au repertoire de la Comedie Francaise.
Note d'intention
When Echange Theatre contacted me and asked me to direct a Feydeau farce for Bastille Day, my first thought was "that sounds like a lot of fun". I was right – but since then, I have discovered that farce is also more challenging to direct than any other style I've worked on. Directing a farce demands a level of precision, timing and exactitude that is almost military, and could perhaps be best described as a 40-minute choreographed fight or dance piece. Every beat, every nuance is essential. Feydeau had an intimate understanding of rhythm and pace, and these beats are written into the play. To deviate from them is to stray off the path – Feydeau's script is an exact plan of how the play is to be performed, and we found ourselves frequently returning to the original French in order to understand how we should approach a particularly difficult section.
Another discovery was how close the comedy is to tragedy. Madame's Late Mother tells the tale of a couple in crisis, rocked by a death in the family. It is a testament to the genius of Feydeau that this grim set-up produces a hilarious play, and we quickly realised that paradoxically, the best way to bring out the humour was to focus on the tragic situation. It is widely believed that Feydeau based Lucien and Yvonne's relationship on his own doomed marriage, which makes working on the characters and their struggles very interesting indeed.
I hope that you enjoy Madame's Late Mother, and that you have as much fun watching it as we have had working on it.
Samuel Miller, July 2008