Le Jardin

A paving stone among the stars

To run no more, to forget everyday stress: a turn round this garden brings sure rejuvenation; A wordless hour and a half in which to meditate upon the human condition. Ninety minutes of burlesque poetry which takes us back to the cinema of Buster Keaton and the theatre of Samuel Beckett. Four thousand five hundred seconds which flow by mostly pianissimo. And yet we have rarely seen such mastery of tempo, so delicate, so perilous. Dider André and

Jean-Paul Lefeuvre know how to keep the rhythm at its slowest, like taming a volcano, letting it spit forth its fireworks from time to time, as a surprise.

The setting is simple: a large greenhouse at centre stage and two characters, obviously opposed in style. One is of medium height, podgy, lumbering and rather authoritative. In the beginning he’s lying in a hammock playing the banjo, not at all on the funny side. He juggles with everything, apart from his cheekbones. The other one, a kind of garden “Pierrot” is a little taller, clad only in shorts, forever active and obliging, often with an air of astonishment, looking at the audience with wide bulging eyes. This gymnast has abdominals of rein- forced concrete and is as lithe as a feline. These two clown-gardeners will bring into bloom, on this stage, the little nothings of existence and the huge problems of the relationships between beings.

For props, a cassette player and some cassettes, a wheelbarrow, fruit boxes, bouquets of flowers and then again hoses, large and small. (Tati could have filmed this scene). The two accomplices play with matter as reference and contrast, between light and dark, gravity and lightness, like the paving stone which may as well be a feather. There is constant amazement in this show, with effects rarely spectacular. They make the most out of a seeming minimum. In this Garden, it’s time which has been put on hold. There is no season to go and see what grows there. Go!

Michel Caspary, 24 Heures (CH)

Fabulous “Garden”. [..] 90 minutes of sheer joy.

Le Populaire

A Must ! [..]The Garden is to Theaterspektakel what Haiku is to Japanese Poetry.

Neue Zürcher Zeitung (CH)

A “Garden” rich and well inhabited, full of emotions, stuffed with laughs and smiles right up to its delicious credit sequence. It’s simple and it deserves a full house.

Le Dauphiné Libéré

If genius in the art of performance consists in showing things hitherto unseen, if it is to create in simplicity and to give extreme pleasure... well, genius exists. [..] A show composed to perfection.

Le Bien Public

We sit gaping in admiration so much our eyes are not enough to show our wonder...

Salzburger Nachrichten (A)

A nursery Garden of crazy or poetic ideas nurtured by two nutty gar- deners.

Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace

A beautiful Garden, fresh, intelligent and funny [...] We smile, we laugh out loud and then we let ourselves get carried away by the poetry, and we sit astounded before a performance which from beginning to end unfolds as a collection of happy surprises.

L’Est Républicain

Quite simply excellent! [...] A show in full flower which makes us cry laughing.

L’Yonne Républicaine

The Press