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LA MENAGERIE Final Day at ACUD

by Sandro Marques

On its last day, Cafébabel went back to ACUD to take some final impressions about the festival. During four days, more than twenty events were programmed at this nonprofit Arts Association in the Veteranenstrasse 21, in Berlin. From Thursday to Sunday, 26 to 29 May, all the courtyards, corridors and balconies, rooms and lobbies shared one language, the language of theatre. For those in Berlin, who have opted to use the French language to express themselves on theatre this was The Event. La Ménagerie took, once more, the risk of producing it. After seven months of hard work, the team made by dedicated volunteers was preparing to celebrate their achievement. We had the chance to talk with one of the main producers and President of La Ménagerie, Hélène Lebonnois, and make her some questions regarding also the future.

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Cafébabel Berlin: This edition is almost at the end. Can you make a balance now about how was it? Hélène Lebonnois: I am really glad with this year’s edition. We had a great feedback from everybody who attended the performances and all the events in the program. There was always a nice atmosphere around.

Cafébabel Berlin: Are you happy with your choice for ACUD as the place for the Festival? H.L.: Indeed, they have here a great team and their space allowed us to experiment several solutions like the one on the opening day, where we had a very creative evening of interaction between most of the artists who performed during the rest of the weekend and the spectators who came by. Also all the people who worked as technicians and all those who helped were really great.

Cafébabel Berlin: What about the process of organizing such an event? Are you willing to continue with it? H.L.: La Menágerie, is made by volunteers and we are doing this because of our love about theater. We are very grateful to all of our sponsors and partners that supported us, in particular, with the communication of the Festival. We wouldn’t have made it without their help. I am convinced that it was, once more, a positive experience but we have to think about how we will continue. Our main goal is to function as a network of people who live in Berlin, speak French but doesn’t know about the other’s work. We focus our work on Theater and other scenic arts. We will have to think about next year because this is becoming very demanding and we all have other things to take care for. We need to find a balance between doing it with more support and in a more professional way but without losing the flame that we bring to it as volunteers.

Cafébabel Berlin: Thank you Hélène.

It was time for the last show and Hélene had to go. From our side we thank La Ménagerie for the invitation and will be waiting for the 3ème édition du festival des arts de la scène francophone à Berlin.

Photo: Johanna Perret

Friday, 2011-06- 3 By Christiane - Culture

LA MENAGERIE “For other messages we have the Deutsche Post”

The workshop En Scène and the stage director Damien Poinsard presented the play La God Maschine in ACUD.

by Sandro Marques

What could be expected from such a mixture of Woody Allen, Tennessee Williams, Guido Reyna and some Greek Tragedies? Amusement, illusion and clashes between characters, profound questions about the meaning of live? In this fusion there was a little of everything and the outcome from several months of work had its fruits. The play started but the subtitles didn´t want to cooperate. So, the first act was without German subtitles. If planned or not, there were no complains by the audience that filled the room. The challenge of not offering everything and letting room for the poetic perception of your audience is courageous.

By the second act, the public was engaged with the play and laughs started to be heard. Contrasting with the calm starting of the initial act, the rest of the play got in a fast rhythm and amusing one. Only by the middle of the second act, a baby woke up and started to cry. The text is mainly based on Woody Allen’s play God (A Play), with small sketches inspired on A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. Two Greek Goddesses, a dramaturgical author searching for immortality and innumerous other characters just add to the confusion following the method of decomposition and reconstruction of the dramatic act used by Damien Poinsard. On a quest for the truth, all this different references engage with hilarious moments trying to find a solution that ultimately satisfies the author. Everyone is entitled to its own truth but ultimately it is God’s will that predominates in La God Maschine.

Questions like the immortality of the author, what is real, what is the truth, were being thrown throughout the play but the main reason for everybody to be there was not to think about it. For some theatre it isn’t. The main purpose is entertainment, the experience of a collective moment of joy and, if because of what we are listening, watching, feeling with that experience, we can still think for a moment, the great message was delivered. What better than learning with joy? As it was said in the play, for other messages we have the Deutsche Post.

By Christiane - Culture

LA MENAGERIE Re-belle

by Sandro Marques

Re-Belle, taken to stage by Compagnie Qui Vive directed by Aline Steiner and performed on stage by Patricia Bakalack, was the first of two guest companies to perform on this year’s edition of the “Festival des arts de la scène francophone” produced by La Ménagerie.

The effort to invite companies from outside of Berlin’s scene was another step forward in this year’s edition. Qui Vive comes from Paris and Mobile Homme Théâtre which performed Saturday, 28 comes from Nîmes, in southern France. Taken to stage at ACUD, the theater house was once more full. The subtitles may have helped the German speaking audience. It was a diverse audience, both in origin and age, just as Berlin is.

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Re-Belle tells the story of a child soldier, which became part of an army at the age of 12, as far as the child can remember. Starting with a soft song, the kind of music that children listen to, Vipèr plays on the ground and slowly, from different stripes of clothes makes her own wrap doll. This in itself is a symbol for what the play is all about.

In its current form, Re-Belle was premiered during this year’s Festival. In this monologue Patricia Bakalack superbly went through as many transformations as a child that becomes a soldier, a soldier that becomes a woman, a woman that becomes a refuge, and as one can only try to imagine. The ranges of psychological beings that such a person has to live with are amazingly performed on stage by the actress.

If we think that such diverse characters are all embodied in one child’s memories we can probably grasp a bit of the trauma this reality constitutes. The silence and immobility from the spectator’s part may be a sign that this time the reality was stronger than theater. At a point, there is a reference to the metamorphosis that a butterfly goes through, from caterpillars into marvelous winged beauties. Vipèr’s metamorphosis is at the reverse pace: From child into a soldier. Vipèr c’est pas Belle elle est Re-Belle.

Photo: Cristina Aibéo

By Christiane - Culture

LA MENAGERIE Voix de Femmes

by Sandro Marques

Based on texts by Helen von Druskowitz and Virginie Despentes, Cléo Mieulet read, in French and German, texts by two authors which address the topic of Femininity (die Weiblichkeit) and Gender Studies. With almost one hundred years separating both writers, the importance of these two women for this discussion is of great relevance.

Voix de Femmes

Virgine Despentes, winner of the Prix Renaudot in 2010 for Apocalypse Bébé, normally writes about the forgotten women that don´t fit in the cage of the feminine: bad girls with violent attitudes, “ugly” women not mirrored by the everyday images of beauty. Helene von Druskowitz, born in 1856, the second women to obtain a Doctorate in philosophy, the first Austrian woman, criticized religion, sexism, the gender inequality and is a reference for Gay and Lesbian History.

The reading switched from one language to the other with such great fluidity that it made the change almost undetectable. Of course, this true Babelian experience is always possible when there is one common language and that was, the portrait of a woman as written by a woman. The bet maide by La Ménagerie, of connecting people despite their natural language, through theatre, but also bringing other kinds of performances to the second edition of this scenic arts festival is a winning bet.

The confrontation between different roles attributed to man and women, based on expected levels of sensitivity, strength or emotional behavior are as valid in Druskowitz as they are today. That is what makes a classic, isn’t it?

Photo: Cristina Aibéo

Wednesday, 2011-06- 1 By Christiane - Culture

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