In a tavern, Virgili presents four short stories that take place in a circus and have the themes of solitude, failure and death in common. A clown, in love with a trapeze artist, kills her partner; a trainer treats his wife as if she were a circus animal and ends up killing her; a young juggler kills his father with the needles he uses to inject cocaine; a soldier, a musician in the circus band who raped girls and killed children during the war, ends up shot as a deserter.

String marionette

Adults

Alapont Pasqual

Spain

Valencia

Printed

Love

Despair

Discrimination

Death

Couple

Loneliness

Revenge

Violence

Spousal abuse

Circus

Domination

Murder

Dramatic

Grotesque

Catalan

Obra per a un actor i titelles

Clown

Trapeze artist

Accordionist

Edith Piaf

Waiter

Spider

Jazz Band

Billie Holiday

Tamer

Carlos Gardel

Guitarist

Dancer

Juggler

Father

Soldier

Harald Paulsen

General

Announcer

Metatheatre

Throws

Song

Murder on stage

Allegory

El circ de la fosca

Le cirque des ténèbres

Jeannot, a child who has a third eye, is adopted by Clémence and Prudent. They take Jeannot to see a doctor who wants to perform surgery on him. Jeannot rebels and a temporary solution is found: his third eye will be blindfolded so that the child can get used to having two eyes and prepare for the future. For a week, Jeannot lives with his eye covered but becomes sick with melancholy. Clémence decides that he will go to school without covering his eye. On the first day, the other children are either surprised or scared, then they are impressed by Jeannot’s “supersonic” eye. Soon enough, they no longer pay attention to that eye, but they pay attention, rather, to what it makes him see. Jeannot contradicts the schoolteacher regarding Romeo and Juliet, and he is chased out of the classroom. Mariette, a classmate, tells him that she shares his point of view. The head of school tells Clémence and Prudent that their son has been expelled for a week. Mariette pays a visit to Jeannot who is stuck in the house, and she reveals to him that she also has a third eye. They dance together until they are interrupted by the arrival of Mariette’s parents. When Jeannot goes back to school, a student mocks him. Mariette defends Jeannot by showing her third eye to everybody in the classroom, which terrifies the schoolteacher, who thinks there is an epidemic. Some parents take legal action and sue for voluntarily contaminating other children. The judge, who is understanding, thinks that Jeannot can see the colour of the human soul thanks to his third eye. Jeannot asks to become an emancipated minor in order to leave on his own, without his parents. His request having been accepted, Jeannot leaves, although it is difficult to accept for Clémence and Mariette. The narrator reveals herself to be Mariette, who has grown old: it is the day of her birthday and she wishes to see Jeannot again more than anything.

Not specified

France

Orphan

Convent

Adoption

Surgery

Vision

Childhood

School

Expulsion

Judgment

Separation

Birthday

Shakespeare

Satirical

Fantasy

French

Narrator

Child

Mother

Doctor

Teacher

Director

Crowd

Judge

Avista

Light effects

Dance

Classroom scene

Night scene

Court scene

Jeannot trois yeux

Three-Eyed Jeannot

A couple made of two numbers give birth to a child, but it is a zero. His father does not accept him, because the child does not look like him. At school, his classmates do not want to play with him either, because he does not have any value. Zero goes to the country of the eights, poses as an eight by joining two zeros, but he realises that the eights are also intolerant. As an eight, he enters the country of the threes, looking like two threes put together, and the threes believe he is a higher being. But when he admits that he is a zero, he is arrested for being an impostor. Then, the threes ask for the wise man’s help. He says that zero adds value to each number, if he stands to their right. Indeed, the numbers realise that if they combine with a zero, they are more valuable. In the end, everyone wants to be friends with the zero. It proves that, on his own, zero was doomed to be nothing and to be sad, but once he lives with other numbers, he is very happy.

Tabletop Puppetry

Young audiences

Algimia de alfar

Electronic text

Fable

Numbers

Immigration

Multiculturalism

Didactic

A scene from a performance of História d'un zero, by Empar Claramunt

Wise man

Transforming one character into another

Història d'un zero

Story of a zero