LE MARIAGE (THE MARRIAGE)

This production overflows with humour and poetry. Its decoration, its wardrobe... it's all really well thought-out.

- JACQUES NERDON, LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR

"Fantasy and social satire, Nicolaï Gogol's text is a variety show which plunges us into the small world of civil servants, officials and salesmen". ." That was how Pariscope magazine summed up the Ukrainian writer's work, Le Mariage (The Marriage), which is the subject of a new production by the Comédie Française which was premiered in Paris in November 2010.

 

Written and performed for the first time in the early 19th century, Le Mariage is full of humour, depicting the comings and goings of an eternal batchelor as he goes about trying to secure his wedding. The protagonist, Kapilotadov, hesitantly hires a go-between in order to fulfill the role that society appears to have assigned him, namely marriage. His friend, Plikaplov, full of good intentions, also enters the match-making plot to find a woman called Agafia who Kapilotadov must win over if he is to get to the altar.

With a simple script - but also full of twists - Gogol delivers a masterly comedy to make the audience smile but also to make them aware of the criticism behind the laughs. Immaturity, vanity, stupidity are all traits attributed to the male sex and one must question them in the same way that one questions the strong collective pressure that exists before marriage. "This work echoes our contemporary culture in the way that social pressure always pushes us towards the search for our kindred soul," explains the production director Lilo Baur who, as an actress, has worked regularly with two of the leading figures of contemporary theatre, Peter Brook and Simon McBurney.

To address the novel nature of the production, Baur worked extensively with the actors in the area of physical language: "I showed them an increasing number of photos, films and artworks... to make them understand that Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and the silent cinema are essential to understanding the mechanics of situation comedy."

www.comedie-francaise.fr