Georges Feydeau was an outstanding playwright and director, often described in France as “the greatest comic playwright since Molière.”
Born in 1862, he lived more than a century before our time. Yet the tragic and ridiculous characters he portrayed with such humour, along with his views on family and love, continue to resonate with us today.
His plays still attract large audiences in France. Every year, his works are performed in theatres large and small throughout the country.
Unfortunately, his plays have yet to be translated into Chinese, depriving Chinese audiences of the opportunity to discover this distinctive French artist of the late nineteenth century.
Last year, I began bringing together several of his works and adapting them into a series of short plays, provisionally titled How Can I Understand You? You're Standing Against the Light…
Making people laugh is Feydeau’s speciality.
He wrote a series of comedies, including well-known works such as Tailleur pour dames and La Puce à l’oreille, as well as lesser-known plays such as Amour et piano, On purge bébé and Léonie est en avance.
Each of these plays is enough to make audiences roar with laughter. But their deeper significance lies in what happens afterwards: laughter gives way to reflection and self-examination, sometimes revealing unsettling truths.
These works from the late nineteenth century remain closely connected to our lives today.
Love, family, human relationships, and the conflicts and uncertainties of everyday life are timeless themes that have endured in great works of literature.
I hope to bring Georges Feydeau’s plays to the stage today, allowing more audiences not only to enjoy a theatrical performance but also to confront their own lives: to face their fears, endure hardship, and fully embrace moments of happiness and joy.
My first idea in directing this production was to bring together characters from different plays by Georges Feydeau.
They come from different backgrounds and have different destinies. When these characters meet, unexpected stories begin to unfold, giving rise to equally unexpected comic situations.
Here, love and hatred intertwine in complex emotions. There are the colourful dreams of childhood, as well as the hopes and choices we face as we grow older and look towards the future.
There is happiness, but also confusion; resignation, but also resistance — even hysteria.
Conflicts become entangled, and different souls collide…
Sifan Shao
Paris, October 2008