The cook Pauline questions Guignol, a hussar, about the date of their wedding, as he has been courting her for a year. The colonel catches them and is displeased with Guignol. Guignol, in turn, reveals that he heard the colonel, while asleep, uttering vows of love to a certain Marie. Shortly afterwards, Amélie, the colonel's daughter, intervenes to ask why her piano teacher is absent.Later, the colonel receives a visit from a countess who has come to ask him why her son, Amélie's piano teacher, has been dismissed, and informs him that he has fallen ill and is in danger of dying. The colonel explains that he decided to separate them because of their young age, to prevent them from falling in love with each other. The countess replies that it is too late, then recounts an episode from the colonel's life: twenty-two years earlier, when he was known as Julien, he and a young girl named Marie were in love. But Marie's father forced her to marry a count. Realising that the Countess is none other than Marie, the Colonel decides to allow Amélie and Marie's son to marry. He leaves with them to go to the young man's bedside. Guignol, after several unsuccessful attempts, kills a cat that was threatening to eat a canary in its cage. Before leaving, the colonel tells him and Pauline that they can marry when he returns and that he will take care of the dowry: he wants everyone around him to be happy.

Glove-puppet

Not specified

Josserand Louis (aka Josserand père)

France

Lyon

Josserand père Louis

Manuscript

Servant

Military

Meals

Love

Remembrance

Wedding

Comical

Didactic

French

Le Colonel (The Colonel)

Colonel

Guignol

Countess

Daughter

Cook

Canari

Off-stage noise

Military exercise

Story

Scene of recognition

Plot twist

Blow-with-a-stick

Fight with an animal

Final dance

Julien et Marie

Julian and Mary

In a dusty underground passageway of the Palais des Papes in Avignon, several historical and legendary inventors discuss the automatons they have built. Each one talks about their inventions, dreams or utopian visions: a bronze fly to chase away real flies, a hydraulic theatre, giant automata with colossal voices preaching peace, mechanical lions and magic apples, two metal heads with superhuman voices, and an automaton that knows every language. Suddenly, a human automaton—the robot—appears. The robot knocks over all the characters and throws Jaquet-Droz to the ground, just as he was explaining that the word written on a sheet of paper by his writing automaton was ‘marvellous’.

Paris

Printed

Automate

Phantom

Science

Discussions

Invention

Rivalry

Merveilleux

Fantastic

Albert le Grand

Héron d'Alexandrie

Virgile de Naples

Regiomontanus

Roger Bacon

Thomas de Bungey

Johann Wolfgang von Kempelen

Léonard de Vinci

L'Abbé Mical

Jacques Droz

Automaton

Robot

Jacques Vaucanson

Inserting poetry

Aside

Apparition of a ghost

Succession de personnages

Voice

Destruction of a puppet

Au paradis des fantômes

In ghost paradise

Clara, a young teenage girl, has killed herself. The day after, the Arpenteur (surveyor) questions several of her relatives to try and understand the circumstances of her death. Whilst he looks for the reasons that led to this act, he also tries to grasp the reasons that motivate him to live. Each of Clara’s relatives describe memories of her and provide contradictory stories of her last moments. Dylan, her boyfriend, admits he felt that she had no desire to live. From the hereafter, Clara observes the same feeling in others. She hears the song that Dylan hums for her and tries to call for him, but to he can’t see her. Adrien, Pierre, and Sylvain, whose job is to start fires, say that they saw Clara with the Passeur (the ferryman). In a flashback, we can see Clara asking the Passeur to choose how she is going to die. A chorus of naiads then describes how she drowned in the river. The Arpenteur asks the Passeur to bring Clara back from the dead. The Arpenteur solves a riddle, and the Passeur allows Clara’s relatives to see her one last time. Clara appears and sees how they all suffer, but she assures them that she is happier dead than alive.

Suicide

Mysterious death

Grief

Quest

Afterlife

Lust

fleuve

Tragic

Philosophical tale

Éloi Recoing, Un instant suicidaire, Théâtre aux Mains Nues, 2008

Concerto pour marionnettes à la mémoire d'un ange

Dead woman

Smuggler

Lover

Naïade

Analepsis (Flash-back)

Dance

Aria

Chorus

Dead talking character

Ghost

Un instant suicidaire

A suicidal moment

Toulouse-Lautrec retraces his life marked by the illness that prevented him from enjoying the pleasures of the nobility to which he belonged, in the Albi family home: outdoor games, hunting, parties, etc. The only pastime that made him forget his illness was painting; because of this he decided to leave for Paris to perfect his art. There, he took refuge in the shadows of the artistic and literary bohemian nights, alcohol, brothels, cabarets, café-concerts, circuses and marginal districts to hide his disability.

Shadow theatre

Rod puppet

Adults

Mas i Usó Pasqual

Spain

Villarreal

Biography

Thoughts on art

Introspective analysis

Painter

Painting

Bohemianism

Infirmity

Illness

Darkness

Night

Disability

Memory

Marginality

Cabaret

Dramatic

Catalan

Toulouse-Lautrec

Monologue

Projected shadows

Metatheatre

Cabaret act

Off-stage voice

Estratègia per a una ciutat d'ombres

Stratégie pour une ville d'ombres

The collection brings together small stories or short heterogeneous dialogues, everyday or absurd scenes on various themes: family, school, work, social conflicts, justice, war, mendicancy, etc. The human turns out to be disposable, just like crumpled paper is.

Clermont-Ferrand

Trash can

Dehumanisation

Humanity

Paper

Daily

Consumer society

Disposable human

Absurd

Fantasy

Satirical

Humorous

ou On est bien peu de chose quand même !

Doctor

Leader

Father

Mother

Politician

Woodworker

Actor

Salesman

Postman

Schoolteacher

African

Child

Nurse

Policeman

Old man

Soldier

Puppeteer

Judge

Prosecutor

Defendant

Flower

Young girl

Lady

Grandmother

Garbage man

Comic distortion of language

Personification

Apparition of the puppeteer

Change of head on sight

Soliloquy

Punching

Metamorphosis

Court scene

Recounting of memories

Histoires post-it

Post-it stories

Whilst she is walking on a beach, Caroline, a puppeteer, tells Filip the story of how they met twenty years ago. The action of the play goes back to that time, when she was a student and was attending her last drawing class. The teacher gives them a horse as part of a teaching experiment. The horse suddenly bursts in the classroom. Sacha is then informed that her father, who lives in another country thousands of miles away, is dying. Caroline offers to go with her and so she can say her last goodbye. They drive there with Raphaël, whose girlfriend Marie lives close to their final destination. When they arrive at Marie’s house, Raphaël learns that Marie has been cheating on him with his brother. He still decides to stay with her. Caroline and Sasha leave and arrive in the holiday cottage of one of their classmates. There, Caroline meets Filip. They share a night of love, but at dawn, he is gone. Caroline and Sasha continue their journey where they witness an accident, and they arrive in the village where Sasha’s father lives. Sasha goes to join him whilst Caroline walks along the little streets and meets the villagers. Sasha comes back and announces that her father died. She’s holding a picture of herself when she was a child, and starts talking to the picture and telling it about her passion for puppets. The next day, Sasha and Caroline attend the funeral, and then take a plane to go back to France.

Direct Manipulation Bunraku-type Puppetry

Charleville-Mézières

Electronic text

Journey

Death

Passion

Future

Unfaithfulness

Road-movie

Realist

François Cervantès, Attends-moi, Charleville-Mézières, 2010.

Julien et Marie

Au paradis des fantômes

Un instant suicidaire

Concerto pour marionnettes à la mémoire d'un ange

Estratègia per a una ciutat d'ombres

Histoires post-it

ou On est bien peu de chose quand même !

Attends-moi

Sous le masque tu es mortel pauvre orphelin !

Fable théâtrale pour comédiens et marionnettes

Rewind

Ni bleu ni blouse

L'Ami (de mon ami)