Anticipation

My one photo of the day, taken as the full-house audience settled in for the traditional launch of the season at the Centre Culturel. As usual, it was a very enjoyable evening. After brief video teasers of the season's shows, there was a short pause before the one-man-show Au Dessus de la Mêlée. As the title might hint to those who know their French rugby terms, it was about Rugby à XIII (or Rugby League as it's known in the UK). It's the iconic sport around here, a real and important part of Occitan identity.  Author/performer Cédric Chapuis played rugby for 15 years in his youth, and the play was largely based on his experiences.

Well, we know next to nothing about rugby, so we weren't expecting it to be as fascinating as it was. Cédric had the audience captivated for 80 minutes, recounting his journey from first playing at the age of five to his team reaching the final of the national championship, playing all the characters with no costume changes apart from occasionally putting on trousers and a jacket. Everything done with body language and voice. Much of the humour was around the character of team coach Moustache. Even without knowing rugby, he was such a recognisable character from round here, with his motivating speeches and on-pitch rants. But there were serious messages here too, about learning resilience and team spirit. And it wasn't only the acting that was great, the staging and particularly lighting and sound effects were brilliant too. Sheer pleasure from start to finish, and he got a huge round of applause at the end. There's a teaser here (some automatically generated subtitles).

Afterwards, the traditional bunfight in tents outside, during which we met many people we know, including (surprisingly) several from our village.  I think we've only seen a neighbour at a show once or twice, but maybe they will be tempted.  I think the theatre has changed caterer, as the food wasn't as elegant as previously, but it was still tasty and copious. All this for 16 euros each!