Still queuing to see Picassos

Press, 19 February 1986, Page 19

Still queuing to see Picassos

ELRIC HOOPER,

director of the Court Theatre, reports on the theatre in Paris.

The French take art truly seriously. What other nation would queue for it in the snow and physically fight for it?

The new Picasso museum has been open now for several months and the queue outside it is still 400 metres long. Snow was threatening, and only the cheerful conversation of companions and the stamping of feet maintained my resolve to stick it out for the hour it took to move to the ticket box. The museum is housed in the Maison Salee, an exquisite seventeenth century palace restored by the Ministry of Culture. It is worth visiting for the house alone. It was built by the man who framed the salt tax for Louis XIV and was decorated from the extortion therefrom. Hence its title the "Salt House”. It now houses Picasso’s collection of his own paintings and sculptures and includes, most interestingly, those pictures from other painters, such as Rousseau and Matisse, that he himself bought It is five floors of wonder.

A similar crowd is to be seen nightly outside an old variety theatre at La Chapelle, one of the poorer districts of Paris now largely populated by Algerians and coloured peoples from France’s former empire. This is the "Bouffes Du Nord”, the home of Peter Brook’s famous theatre laboratory. Here, each evening, one of the three parts of Brook’s latest production, the 10 hour Indian epic “The Mahabharata”, is given. It is undoubtedly the hottest ticket in Paris and, as you will see, physical violence takes place not only to get a ticket but to get a good seat.

The Mahabharata is India’s great epic poem — the longest poem in the world in fact It tells the story of the creation of the world, the rivalry of two princely families, the exile of one of these clans, and its eventual triumph in a bloody war. In the end, even the gods die. This sprawling, philosophical and dramatic poem has been reduced by Brook to just under 10 hours’ playing. It was originally presented in an enormous quarry at Avignon. It began at eight in the evening and played through till dawn. In Paris, it is divided into three parts.

Over the years, I have seen nearly all Peter Brook’s major stage works, from the early opera and musical producations, such as “Irma la Douce” and “The Visit”, to “King Lear” and “Marat-Sade,” on to the more recent “Carmen.” While appreciating the work intellectually and perceiving its integrity and ingenuity, I was never much moved by it — if at all.

The “Mahabharata” is very different. I wept at the end as if leaving dearly loved friends.

Brook’s company is drawn from many countries and cultures. Two of the Indian generals, for example, are played by a huge negro and a middle-aged Japanese. The language is, of course, French.

The Bouffes du Nord, Brook’s theatre, has been stripped of all its former glory, and the plastered walls have been scraped to look like peeling frescos on which the figures are no longer visible. There is no scenery — just these very attractive textured walls. The stalls have been filled in to form an extension of the stage and the 600 seats are in what was formerly the three rows of galleries.

The actors begin with the proscenium arch or from the audience, and perform much of the piece where the stalls used to be. A yard or so from the back wall of the stage a river crosses the stage, full of water to the depth of about a foot. The stage surface looks like packed mud of a golden hue. There is another pool of real water near the audience, in which characters wash, drink, regard themselves, and fight During the tremendous battle sequences the actors flail through these waters and end covered in mud. All action is as in children’s games. The bows the men carry are just one upright stick, no string, and their arrows are untipped, bamboo rods. When they shoot arrows, they draw back the bamboo as if firing and then cross the stage to place the’ arrow on its mark. A chariot fight is represented by two men with long bamboo poles each accompanied by another who bowls a chariot wheel alongside him as one does a hoop or an old tyre. We are in a violent and magical world. At the end, only the good king is left alive. Even the God Krishna has been killed — his feet, as he slept, having been mistaken for rabbit’s ears by a hunter. The good king nears the gates of paradise and is angered to see all the enemies he has suffered so much to overcome clad in white and within the gates. Reconciled to this, he

enters paradise too. Friends and enemies clad all in white sit in small groups about the stage, each lit by a small cup of fire. Indian musicians sit playing gently in their midst Cakes on small trays are offered. Enemies eat together and smile. Slowly the flame in each cup of fire is extinguished, and the music dies. All is darkness. The end of the world has come or the end of the illusion. The effect is overwhelming. It is odd, then, that this great work of reconciliation should take place in a theatre so full of aggression. • I was very lucky in that an hour before the performance I bought a ticket from a man whose wife had suddenly taken ill. I was bewildered why the rest of the audience, if they had tickets, were there so early. I was soon enlightened. , From some idea of false democracy, the management does not allocate the seats and the first into the theatre get the best vantage points. The stampede is not just frantic; it has an added French fervour. Of course, people rushed to the central banks of the first tier. The rows quickly filled up. The lucky - place-holders sat like birds on a wire waiting to migrate. Then a huge man the size of a polar bear walked along the front row, stepped over into the second, and promptly sat down on the people who were sitting where he wanted to sit The poor couple, to prevent being crushed, shifted sideways. This set up a chain reaction and a distinguished director from Sweden fell off the end of the row. There were shouts, punches, a summoning of the management and a general, cheerful joining-in and leaning-over from all the other balconies. f Somehow order was restored. I wondered why ! had such little trouble finding a good place. Just before the play began, I noticed a little plaque on the back of my bench, “Reserved for the director”. I was sitting in Peter Brook’s seat but nobody asked me to move. “The Mahabharata” is undoubtedly among .the greatest performances I have ever seen. The French Government has so funded Brook that he can assemble such a mature and varied cast and take nine months to bring this work of genius to birth. As I said at the beginning, the French take-their Art truly seriously. V*