Well met by moonlight

When most Brits think of amateur dramatics they most likely envisage a group of "Hempen homespuns" hamming up a panto in a draughty church hall with Joe Blogs the town clerk and Billy Miggins the baker stealing the show as the two backsides of a horse. This, of course, is neither true nor fair to the myriad souls who quit the day in the boardroom or in front of the blackboard to tread the boards, enduring months of rehearsals and lost nights of learning lines before the stomach churning first night.

So last Saturday, when I received the invitation, from good friend Caroline, to an amateur, French-language production of A Midsummer Night's Dream (in which Sophie, an old friend of hers, was performing), I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

Going to see any comedy in a foreign language is risky enough, as you will never be totally in-tune with the cultural quirks and jeux de mots that are the base of most comic works. To watch Shakespeare, about as English an institution as strikes are French, is even more so, as you risk spending the whole show just waiting for the inevitable faux pas and that's before we've even got to the fact that it's in a foreign language! Anyway, as I knew the story pretty well, I thought it would be worth it. If anything, just to see how my French comprehension has developed over the past year. I'm glad I did!

It was far from an auspicious arrival though. The white-tiled centre d'animations on Rue Mathis (Paris 19eme) looked a bit like an old swimming pool (funnily enough it shared the building with one!) and the only people outside when I arrived was a barrel-bellied pool attendant and a middle-aged, dreadlocked West Indian child-care worker supervising a motley, if incredibly happy, group of charges. Soon enough though the theatre goers began to role up and at ten past eight we were ushered into the appropriately named Salle Shakespeare for curtain-up.

Well, not really, as there wasn't a curtain, apart from at the back of the stage, the opening and shutting of which issued in the scene changes from Athenian court to fairy-strewn forest (black background/ white background). Scenery, however was the only thing this show lacked. From Egeus's complaint, through fairy feuds and asses made and unmade, to Robin's final amends, it was a delight!

The hatred felt for Hermia by a bewitched Lysander fairly spat off the tongue. Oberon cast his funky spell on Titania in tones more Brown (James) than Bard. A lanky, shaven-headed, rubber-necked Bottom and a bearded Francis Flute made a sublimely ridiculous Pyramus and Thisbe, with a stage-struck Peter Quince (or Patricia in this case) uttering the fastest lines of French I've ever heard. The fairies, including Sophie's Cobweb, even incorporated a sensuous mixture of martial arts, yoga and modern dance to enhance the performance.

Puck, however, was the magic that held it all together. Bending, twisting and contorting leather-clad limbs and elastic facial muscles into expressions of mirth, menace and mischief, she (or he, or it) manoeuvred both audience and characters effortlessly through the action. Mesmerising!

As for the prospective language issues, my knowledge of the play ensured that I understood at least 60% of what was said. For everyone else though, the wonderful simplicity of the story; the fact that the plot devices are of a more visual nature and the exceptional performance of the cast ensured that people from anywhere could have understood and thoroughly enjoyed the play.

This is a blog and not a theatre review however. So, after the show, thespian appetites sated and stomachs needing some more nourishing faire, Caroline, myself and two other friends headed for la Villette, only for Sophie to call us back to a little café just around the corner from where the play had taken place. The magic of the fairy forest then seemed to return briefly as the brilliant 'super' moon hung in the ink-black sky, bathing the arches of La Rotonde in its preternatural glow.

Back at Café des Sports, as we tucked into various cartons, tubs and boxes of take-away with the cast, I could imagine a similar scene as Bottom and co. return home triumphant, through the Athenian twilight, to congratulate each other on a play "very notably discharged."

Lost in a good bookshop

Two months since I last posted! It's almost as if I've had nothing to talk about (how can you write sarcasm?) In the last nine weeks I've been north to Lille, where I discovered a canal that everyone seems to fall into and a French version of Welsh rarebit (God knows why); south to Marseilles and Aix-en-Pronvence, where I spotted the far from elusive cagolle and ran a half marathon with more ups and downs than a week's worth of Eastenders (well done on your first semi-marathon Elodie) and east to Duisburg, old German stamping ground and home to some of the finest examples of what people brought up pre-Facebook would call 'friends'. I've also been the star of a film student's video, beat a backgammon nemesis and oh yes, decided to leave Paris (not for discussion now).

This week, however, has been a little more arty. Music has featured strongly, with Tuesday's pilgrimage to Zenith to marvel at the longevity and get on down with the sheer rhinestone-studded cool of Texan blues-rock granddaddies ZZ Top. A lot less hip, the annual Fete de la Musique (or "how many times can somebody butcher U2?") on Friday saw the customers of Chez Gudule having the chance (or misfortune) to witness dancing a la Kad.

More sedate, though certainly not lacking charm, was the book signing at the Abbey Book Shop (29, Rue de la Parcheminerie, 5eme, home of the Canadian Club). The apartment opposite is allegedly home of French movie siren Isabelle Adjani, but we weren't here to spot celebrities. Perennial maitresse de la culture, Elodie, had invited me along to this little gem of a literary corner in the Marais to hear extracts from the book "Je t'aime, me neither", a tale of romantic adventure and misadventure in the City of Light, by her friend and self published Canadian author April Lily Heise. Though Lily herself was brilliantly bubbly - as was the free flowing champagne - and there was the occasional opportunity to meet the odd literary celeb (among them "A Year in the Merde" author Stephen Clarke, though not the fabled Adjani) the real star was the librairie itself.

A warm, Canadian welcome at the Abbey

Genius minus the gimmicks:give me this over Waterstone's anytime!

                                 
Set up in 1989 by amiable Canadian expat Brian Spence and squirrelled away in a cobbled alleyway, barely four people across, the Abbey is everything you'd want a little, old bookshop to be. In a kind of literary Tardis, warm, wooden shelves stretched for miles, literally piled from floorboards to rafters with fact and fiction, poetry, plays and prose (see photos). Forget a few hours, I could have lost myself for days in there, amongst the teetering towers and criss-crossing corridors, there was even a cellar for everything they couldn't fit upstairs.

As I left, clutching my signed copy of Je t'aime (for a friend!) and a novel in verse on the possible post-mortem exploits of Christopher Marlowe, I couldn't help wondering if Carlos Ruiz Zafon had found inspiration in the Abbey for his mythical "Cemetery of Lost Books" and if Isabelle Adjani actually knew how good a bookshop she had across the road.

Links:

The Abbey's Facebook page (I had too!):
https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Abbey-Bookshop/19922251361

Lily's book and blog:
http://jetaimemeneither.com/about/