After a long silent prologue evoking the creation of the world and then the fertilisation of an ovum by a “ballet of spermatozoids”, the Poète (Poet) brings into focus the birth of two characters – Homme (Man) and then Femme (Woman). They both feel the “tragic desire to be made complete”. They make love and are thus made whole. But disease, infidelity, weapons and secrets appear with the birth of the city. Homme and Femme forget one another. A new concrete city takes over the old one, and no space is left for emotions. Homme finds himself in a crowd led by money, proprietorship and the market. Why waste your life for machines, Homme asks? Why give birth to children in a world that is filled with pain, Femme asks as an echo? Determined “not to accept the unacceptable”, “not to allow to not live” and to “organise the dream”, they meet again before fading into the growing darkness.

Rod puppet

Adults

France

Metz

Printed

Love

Sexuality

Labour

Daily life

Industry

Pollution

Madness

Lyrical

Philosophical tale

Erotic

Gabriel Cousin, Oratorio pour une vie, L'Avant-scène théâtre, n° 702, 1982 (cover page)

French

Poet

Love duet

Scene of copulation

Hands visible

Monologue

Inserting poetry

Avista

Chorus

Oratorio pour une vie

Oratorio for a life

Mademoiselle (Miss) Félicité, a foreign doctoral student, pays a visit to Morched – a master puppeteer – to buy his puppets. Her request is categorically denied because, in Morched’s eyes, puppetry is ancestral work. However, after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the authorities censored traditional Iranian culture and Morched is forbidden from practicing his trade. In spite of this prohibition, he decides to use his puppets one last time to tell the love story between Pahlévâne and Sarvé-Nâz Khânome, which will soon be made impossible because of the Mullahs, who support their friend Mobârak (“a mischievous servant”). Unable to destroy his puppets, Morched – just before he dies – decides to entrust them to Mademoiselle Félicité, who will be able to keep the memory of his work alive.

Actor and puppet

Not specified

Puppeteer

Puppets

Student

Power

Transmission

Religion

Current events

Bans

Political context

Death

Comical

Epic

Dramatic

Frédéric de Manassein, cover art for Mémoires d'une marionnette.

Journal d'une marionnette

Wife

Servant

Mobârak

Young man

Monster

Horse

King

Prince

Priest

Young woman

Herald

Guard

Deux Balayeurs, Torch-Ali Bak et Chirin-ali Bak (jumeaux)

Twins

Eunuch

Vehicle

Ambassador

Quelques Dignitaires civils et militaires

Dancer

Mise-en-abyme

Dialog between a puppet and its puppeteer

Address to the public

Comedy of language

Comic speech

Multi-voice shouting

Allusion to current political events

Versified passages

Apparition of a monster

Death on stage

Mémoires d'une marionnette

Memoirs of a puppet