The auditorium was crammed last night. I had never seen so many people in it. As if we had needed theater more than anything? Not as if: that’s what people said, in so many words. Compagnie Tabula Rasa did a masterful job with Jean-Marie Piemme’s Dialogue d’un chien avec son maître sur la nécessité de mordre ses amis.
From time to time, I pulled my attention away from the actors, and looked at the audience. The faces. The expressions. The smiles. The laughter. Laughter, at some of the outrageous things being said? Things involving body parts and their functions? Plus anger and rage raised to incandescence? No doubt about it: a huge portion of what we consider humorous has a cultural slant to it. Every culture starts off with the same material to joke about – the boss, the government, the wife/husband/kids, the in-laws, the neighbors, the self, birth, death, and everything in between. How liberating when everyone in the audience titters or smiles or laughs out loud at the same moments. How shocking when someone else uses the joke as his excuse to pull out a real gun to put an end to the laughter.
The power of words. Of photos. Illustrations. Guns.
This being the reality in which people live, love, get sick, get better, die, leave debts, memories, children, books, loads and loads of unfinished business. And so on. Music. Mustn’t forget poetry. Plus, the trivial and frivolous – important.
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An appointment with a notary to discuss last wills and testaments. An appointment that turns into a delightful conversation – free of charge, he insisted. Books, films, the Chinese about to implement the French notarial system, why he can’t put up his favorite cartoons on the walls of his office… we ranged far and wide. Bottom line, on the main topic: I write out my own will, he registers it for fifty euro. I slip a note in my wallet with his name and business address, in case I get run over by a car or mowed down by someone with no sense of humor. And I let friends and family members know how to contact one another when the need arises. Voilà. Shall do.
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Queries. Plus the proto-draft phase of writing on the next story. One of the characters starting to emerge from the shadows, several years after the death of her husband in a story I wrote a few years ago.
Music. Music. Music
