A Night at the Theatre!

For my theatre/cinema class, we're reading some plays and then going to see them. A month or so ago we saw "Le Cid," by Corneille. Last night we went to go see "Cyrano de Bergerac." For those of you who are in the dark, this is a very famous play by Rostand and it's about a man, Cyrano, who has an exceedingly large nose. He is a poet/cadet, and he is in love with Roxanne, but Roxanne is in love with another cadet named Christian. Christian can't write very well, though, so Cyrano writes love letters to Roxanne which Christian signs and delivers, and so Roxanne falls more in love with Christian but it's really Cyrano whose words she loves! Aah! Anyway, so last night we saw it at the Comedie Francaise, which is the acting company instituted by Louis XIV, and they are always the epitome of great theatre.

The play was a very odd rendition, though, and they used little red polka dots thrown in the air for blood when someone got hurt, and odd little films of off-stage action, and they never covered up their sets off stage, so it was very odd. It never really settled on a time period, either. It was good, but in an odd sort of way.

However, some observations about theatres here, or at least the ones I've been in: thy are vey elaborate. There is a floor-level with perhaps 100 seats and then about five balcony levels, all spanning 3 sides of the room except for the stage. There are box seats which remind me of operas, and the balconies are guilded and sculptured and very elaborate. It doesn't really make a difference to the play itself, but it is indeed a very different atmosphere. It makes it somehow more cultured, and it gives you the feeling of being rich and privliged, going to a play in surroundings like this, but at the same time it makes you pay attention to how cultured the French are, since they're always going to plays and while they don't take the sculptures/guilding for granted, they EXPECT it. It makes me want to be more cultured myself.