Taking folk tales from around the world, British company 1927 bring their latest category-busting show to Paris in English in March.
Roots began with a book writer Suzanne Andrade found in the British Library. The Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index is a treasure trove of the world's folk tales. It gives short descriptions of stories, variations of which can been found from Scotland to Spain, Ireland to India, and classifies them into categories such as "transformation", "stupid husbands" and "foolish wives".
Having selected likely stories, the company gave them "the 1927 treatment" developed in their previous shows such as The Animals and Children took to the Streets and Golem. 1927 combines silent-film-type performance, animation and music. And in this case, voiceover of the actual tales by friends and family of the company.
Andrade insists on the fact that these are folk tales, not fairy stories. They are rooted in real life, "different to the folk tales we grew up with, which, it became clear, had been bleached and cleaned up, trimmed and neatened, packed full of Christian morality, gender stereotypes, and ‘defanged’ to quote Angela Carter." Carter's unexpurgated and feminist tales in The Bloody Chamber (1979) and Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales (1992) are a major influence.
Roots
24-29 March 2020
In English, with French surtitles
Théâtre de la Ville-Abbesses
Copyright(s) :
Leigh Webber
Tag(s) : "1927" "animation" "folk tales" "silent films" "theatre"