French Rendezvous@Tai Kwun: De La Fontaine

EVENT DESCRIPTION

The village is bustling on the market day. One notices a fascinating social fresco:

Friendships and animosities, gossip and whispers, anger and jealousy are all on display in the public square. Will Miss Fox be seduced by Mr. Wolf? Mr. Ox is red with anger when Miss Stork seems touched by Mr. Rooster’s foolery.

There are as many opinions as there are heads!

Welcome to the fabulous anthropomorphic fantasy of popular imagination. Today, the heroes of the fables are affable!

The idea is to bring into play the literary style of the fable, which is the comedy playlets where the plot is quick and lively, and music, mimes and mask interplay replace the text.

Describing characters where everyone can find their quirks, the Archibald Caramantran company spins their web against a backdrop of humour where self-mockery is at stake. The fable is no longer the sharp demonstration of a moral but the representative of the short moments of suspended life, even of a bygone time, the revisiting time of Lully’s, the time and place where touring companies and commedia dell’arte, jesters and poets, troubadours were active, and experiencing the agitation of the crowd.

Humanity here is represented by a courtyard of animals wearing elegant and shimmering costumes. Sometimes dandy, sometimes rascal, sometimes rational. The human touch is beyond imagination.

Human nature is thus made. Animality reigns supreme!