Renaissance post-Covid du Festival Off d’Avignon 2021

The Festival Off d’Avignon, one of the largest performing arts festivals in the world, is reborn this year in an unprecedented and vigorous way, as if the Covid had reached it to better resuscitate it.
Would confinement have been a breeding ground for existential reflection?
More than ever, the pieces revisit the classics and historical themes, in order to reinvent them, reinterpret poetry and dramas.

“Paul, Gershwin and I”
Paul, renowned classical jazz pianist dares the iconoclastic association with Adèle, a talented self-taught singer, tap player.
She: “Get up from your chair, how stuck you are!” Him: “It has to be perfect, we’re performing on Saturday”. Stormy creation of an unconventional duo where each brings to the other the best of his musical sensibility.
“Paul, Gershwin and I” at 1:30 p.m. at La petite Caserne (119 rue Carreterie Avignon) until July 31 (no on Mondays)
with Mathilde Maumont and Jean Philippe Guillo

“Fallacia”
The play is inspired by Feydeau whose stories we know, always funny, light … but a little stupid!
Today’s woman having the right to make her brain work, Rose, actress Clémence Baron, also author of the play, plays a brilliant opportunist. She uses both her real and her false lover, in order to manipulate her cuckold husband … while protecting his financial interests!
But the three men are smart, too. Each holds the other “by the goatee”.
The plot takes us along like a high-flying thriller … to better have fun in an unforeseen way.
“Fallacia” by Clémence Baron at 1:30 p.m. at Sham’s (25 rue Saint-Jean le Vieux Avignon) until July 31 (no on Mondays)
with Clémence Baron, Colin Doucet, Brieuc Dumont, Alexis Hubert and Caroline Saule

“Tartuffe”
Molière, yes, but to laugh about it with our current references. When “Tartuffe” spreads in sweet alexandrines, the song “Paroles, paroles” by Dalida comes to make fun of him.
“Tartuffe” by Molière at 2pm at the Optimist (50 rue Guillaume Puy Avignon) until July 31 (no Wednesday)
with Sophie Millon, Théodora Carla and Anaïs Khaizourane

“De Profundis” by Oscar Wilde
It is the poignant letter that the writer wrote from his prison to his lover whose father had had him embastiled.
A one-on-one vibrating with suffering, love and forgiveness comes to us with remarkable intensity.
A magnificent game that is not unrelated, actor Josselin Girard tells us, with his isolation in a 30m2 studio during the pandemic.
“De Profundis” at 11 am at the Albatros (29, rue des Teinturiers Avignon) until July 31 (break on Wednesdays)
with Josselin Girard

The Festival Off d’Avignon is a wonderful incubator for the creation of the year.
Throughout this summer month, depending on the reactions of the public, the pieces will be refined to sparkle better, like the great vintages of champagne that we come to turn every day.
It happens that there are small lengths or imperfections, the opportunity to discuss it with the artists, their producers and press officers, seated around a glass, in the shade of the plane trees of a small square of the city.
Pleasure for the spectator to contribute modestly to a collective gestation which will see the light of day in the fall.

The public, less numerous this year, is different.
The usual nerds no longer hold the upper hand. They deserted, fearing contamination.
A good-natured, more authentic audience has taken the place, fond of shows and relaxed vacations.
He rushes effortlessly to the rentals, the rooms are not always full, then scattered in the streets and little crowded squares where we find – oh miracle! – enough for a relaxed lunch, quietly seated, in the shade.
It is among the truly privileged that the Avignon festival is being played this year.

Despite a slightly lower attendance, everything is therefore combined to give us the benefit of exceptional creativity in an extraordinary profusion of cultural offers – around 1070 pieces this year.

Have a good Avignon Festival 2021.

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