Anselme Sablefin, "a man of a certain age", fights against time. He does everything he can to silence the hands of his watch. But they only do as they please, despite his threats and physical attacks. On his birthday, Anselme invites his friend Pascal Beaurivage over and takes out the cake from last year’s birthday, which “had entirely faded and looked all stale and inedible”. Faced with Beaurivage’s sadness, he brings out a second cake, a fresher and mouth-watering one – the birthday cake’s birthday cake. Everytime Anselme cuts a slice, shapes suddenly come out, reminding him of various periods of his life.When Sonia, Beaurivage’s daughter, asks him to cut the last slice of the cake, a huge, red heart and tears suddenly appear. He dies, but comes back to life right after, and they all eat the cake together.

Not specified

France

Printed

Birthday

Nostalgia

Fear

Death

Cake

Sadness

Aging

Friendship

Dramatic

Comical

Fantastic

French

Oversized object

Fake death

Running gag

Object coming to life

Blow with an object

Apparition

A Piece of Cake

Un morceau de gâteau

A man comes on stage, crushed under the massive pillow he is carrying. He opens it and takes out heaps of fibre - orange, then blue, grey, etc. He scatters them around him until they cover the stage. The man is enthralled by all this matter and speaks to it, telling it about life in general. Little by little, he becomes lost in it.

Performance with raw material

Young audiences

Strasbourg

Electronic text

Birth

Living world

Lyrical

Renaud Herbin, À qui mieux mieux, 2022.

Monologue

Comic stuttering

Actor speaking to an object

Prosopopoeia

À qui mieux mieux

Each one more so than the other