Playing French Seattle

Tickets and Information

Visit the Playing French Seattle website:
http://www.steeplechaseproductions.com

The third annual Playing French Seattle festival of absurdist plays written in French language by French and Francophone playwrights will feature the work of Romanian born author Matei Visniec, and also includes work by Georges Feydeau, Honore de Balzac, and Samuel Beckett.

Deuxieme Tilleul à Gauche (by Matei Visniec, directed by Tom Ansart): In two acts strictly parallel and complementary, a man and a woman make a spectator believe that they are responsible for the actions of their vis-à-vis. Puppeteers manipulated, they emphasize the reversals cause-effect / effect-cause, which can be applied to both the theater and life.
Staged in French language with English supertitles October 20, 22, 27, 28 at 7:30 pm.


Old Clown Wanted (by Matei Visniec, directed by Roger Tompkins): Three elderly men arrive with suitcases in a windowless room. They have answered an advertisement stating "Small Part for Old Clown". When no one arrives to interview them they start performing their old routines. Who will get the part?

Staged in English translation October 20, 22, 27, 28, at 8pm; October 31 at 3 pm.

Feydeau Composé (adapted and directed by Cecile Casanova): Though critics at the time dismissed Feydeau's works as light entertainment, he is now recognized as one of the great French playwrights of his era. His plays are seen today as a precursor to the Theatre of the Absurd. This new adaptation by Cecile Casanova takes the best and juiciest parts of his three prominent one acts: Léonie est avance, Feu la mère de Madame", and N'te promène donc pas toute nue!

Staged in French Language Wednesday October 21 at 8 pm.

Balzac (adapted and directed by Tom Ansart): Balzac's last play, never staged during his lifetime, was a forerunner of Beckett's Waiting for Godot. Mercadet, a 19th century stock speculator, on the verge of economic ruin, attempts to marry his daughter to a rich marquis,and to convince his creditors that his former business partner, Godeau, has returned for the Indies with a fortune. Watch the comic machinations of this insidious character in his attempts to manipulate out of his self-created hell.
Bilingual adaptation in English and French languages (supertitled) October 23, 25, 31 at 8 pm; November 1 at 3 pm.

Happy Days (by Samuel Beckett, directed by Leonid Anisimov): Beckett is considered one of the last modernists in what Martin Esslin called the "Theatre of the Absurd". Winnie, a woman no longer young, is embedded up to her breasts in a mound of earth. She lives in a deluge of never-ending light from which there is no escape.Staged in English Language October 29, 30, November 1 at 8 pm.