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

The text is a disjointed succession of small texts full of imagery that tackle in a humorous and poetic manner the ways in which the human brain functions (neurons, grey matter, cerebral hemisphere, transmission of information to organs) and rationalises human feelings, especially love. The texts mention metaphysical themes such as the universe, death, being, space or time. The fragments can take various forms : scenes from everyday life, small story, poem, dialogue, reflexive monologue, aphorism, songs,... Some poems are in italics and follow a rhythmic or phonetic thread.

Object theatre

Not specified

Lyon

Metaphysics

Brain

existence

Memory

Language

Humorous

Absurd

Patrick Dubost, Ego non sum sed vos amo, Compagnie M.A, 2009.

La Mécanique des jours et des peines.

(je n'existe pas mais je vous aime)

Director

Worker

Puppeteer

Philosophical dialogue

Song

Slaps

Dialog between a puppet and its puppeteer

Word reiteration

Argument

Ego non sum sed vos amo

I do not exist but I love you

In an atmosphere recreating the Soviet Union in the 1970s, two actors greet the audience in Russian. They are wearing blond wigs and handing out tickets made of tissues. An old record player, a table with an ancient television covered with a crocheted doily and small china dogs, among other objects, form a kitschy setting. The paper figures show a nose coming off the face of author Nikolai Gogol and going into a bottle of port wine on the table, next to a turtle with Marine Le Pen’s face. Then Theresa May flies across space aboard a T-Rex. Vladimir Putin is turned into a zebra in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s body, with Sacha Baron Cohen’s legs (Borat). He will then appear in a two-headed heart alongside Donald Trump. Finally, Jacques Prévert’s and Luís de Camões’s lines are recited and accompanied by an unusual and varied soundtrack (Iggy Pop, Serge Gainsbourg, Juliette Gréco, Yves Montand).

Toy theatre

All audiences

Portugal

Lisbon

Storyboard

Politics

Social criticism

Nose

Music

Kitsch

Collage

Culture

Comical

Satirical

Este não é o nariz de Gogol mas podia ser... com um toque de Jacques Prévert (Compagnie A Tarumba, 2016)

Portuguese

Nikolai Gogol

Writer

Barber

Major

Part of human body

Sphinx

Vladimir Putin

Donald Trump

Marine Le Pen

Boris Johnson

Theresa May

Jacques Prévert

Luís Vaz de Camões

Singer (female)

Juliette Gréco

Singer

Yves Montand

Serge Gainsbourg

Iggy Pop

Football player

Cristiano Ronaldo

Barack Obama

Grupo de narizes bailarinos de São Petersburgo

Dancer

Address to the public

Comical foreign accent

Allusion to current political events

Caricature

Este não é o nariz de Gogol mas podia ser... com um toque de Jacques Prévert

This is not Gogol’s nose but it could be… in Jacques Prévert’s style

Two actors, first dressed up as gorillas, relate murders using a ventriloquist dummy and paper toys. The killers – represented by articulated heads – confess the reasons behind their crimes and reveal several details: the arms they used, the time it took for the victims to die, or the amount of blood they shed. They killed out of vengeance, passion, or even because of daily trivial conflicts. The killers’ heads often wear banners asking for forgiveness, and some crimes are told using shadow theatre. After reading each story, the actors stop to sing a nursery rhyme and play a clapping game. The show ends with a murder on stage.

Shadow theatre

Full-view manipulation

Actor and puppet

Ventriloquism

Manipulated object

Tabletop Puppetry

Porto

Death

Assassination

Humour

Black comedy

Dramatic

Curtas em papel, osso e fel (Compagnie A Tarumba, 2019)

Animal

Apparition of the puppeteer

Change of voice

Accumulation of events

Narrator

Murder on stage

Curtas em papel, osso e fel

Short stories in paper, bone and bile

In a dark forest, Pulcinella encounters Dante. To get out of the forest, he will have to cross Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. Dante accompanies him in Hell, where Pulcinella meets Caronte (Charon) and fights Cerbero (Cerberus) and several devils. Lucifero (Lucifer) himself comes to drive Pulcinella out of Hell. He can now access Purgatory, where he is accompanied by Diego Maradona. There, he meets several souls that ask him to pray for them: the souls of a soldier, a priest, a prostitute and a guappo (local thug) killed by Pulcinella. He finally meets Death who plays tricks on him using skulls. After defeating Death, Pulcinella can access Paradise, where he is accompanied by Beatrice. In Paradise, Pulcinella wants to eat but San Gennaro explains that holy souls do not eat. As an exception, San Vincenzo Ferrer gives him a meal and Sant’Antonio Abate brings him a cup of coffee. At the end of the play, Pulcinella dances with Beatrice. With the journey over, Pulcinella now looks for his true Paradise: his lover Teresina.

Glove-puppet

Marotte

Leone Bruno

Italy

Naples

Palermo

Electronic text

Hell

Purgatory

Heaven

Hunger

Original sin

Pulcinella and Dante in the dark forest

Italian

Pulcinella nell'Inferno, Purgatorio e Paradiso delle guarattelle

Pulcinella

Dante Alighieri

Charon

Cerberus

Devil

Lucifer

Diego Armando Maradona

Soldier

Priest

Prostitute

Thug

Soul in Purgatory

Beatrice

Saint Januarius

God (monotheism)

Saint Vincent Ferrer

Saint Anthony the Great

Teresina

Pulcinellino

Baby

Fighting a monster

Versified passages

Apparition of the Devil

Blow-with-a-stick

Dead talking character

Dance

Childbirth on stage

Nel mezzo del teatrin di nostra vita

In the middle of the puppet booth of our life

Alcide Cervi was a farmer. In 1934 he moved with his family to Gattatico, near Reggio Emilia, on a piece of land called Campirossi ("red fields"), which nobody wanted because it was infertile. He lives there with his nine children: seven boys and two girls. With hard work, they manage to make these fields prosper, and the family can afford to buy a tractor. The Cervi family is known for their anti-fascist political positions. After July 1943, when the Americans landed and Mussolini was arrested, all seemed well. But in November of the same year, a hundred fascists besieged the Campirossi house. The seven brothers try to resist, but they are arrested and eventually executed. As a sign of support and respect, Alcide Cervi never ceased to receive gifts from all sides: a Bible from the Fiat factory workers in Turin, a globe from the agricultural cooperative workers in Santa Vittoria, skittles for his grandchildren from some friends of the boules club. Finally, the puppeteer himself, Maurizio Bercini, wants to give Alcide a gift: a puppet with his features, with which he can transform pain 'into serenity and play'.