Bilingual mischief in "Les Romanesques"

UPDATE: download a PDF of the program here (750K)

It's a play in the romantic French tradition by Edmond Rostand, best known as author of the swashbuckling Cyrano de Bergerac. He wrote Les Romanesques as a twist on the Romeo & Juliet story of young lovers from feuding families: in this case, the fathers actually want ther children to marry (so they can combine their adjacent properties) and pretend to be enemies so the kids will meet in secret and fall in love; they even organize a feigned abduction so the boy can rescue the girl and resolve the "feud."

Cute premise, n'est-ce pas? and demonstrably popular: Les Romanesques was the basis for the longest-running play in American musical theater, The Fantasticks ("Try to Remember," "Soon It's Gonna Rain," etc.).

Percinet argues with Bergamin; Straforella "abducts" Sylvette

Enter Tom Ansart of Steeplechase, a producer without a troupe ever since West Seattle's Liberty Deli shut down. His notion: perform the self-contained first act of Les Romanesques in French and in English. And what better venue than Wallingford's venerable Good Shepherd Center, headquarters for the Alliance Française in Seattle, where, as it happens, Historic Seattle has been restoring the high-ceilinged chapel as a performance space.

Ah, but can you find actors able to perform with equal competence in both French and English? As it turns out, the answer is yes. That junior year abroad, that semester in Paris, whether recent or long ago, is paying off.

The young lovers are played by Seattle University student Colton Carothers (Percinet) and playwright Darian Lindl (Sylvette); the fathers by a classically trained actor with a secret love for French language, David S. Klein (Bergamin) and by moi-même (Pasquinot); and the swashbuckler hired for the abduction by Kady Douglas (Staforella), also a professional actor. Scott Taylor, PhD, a professor of French at Pacific Lutheran University, is the director.

More about the cast here; Tom's blogged production notes here. Preview in North Seattle Herald-Outlook here.

Trivia: I performed in The Fantasticks many, many years ago, playing the same role, the girl's father.

Do come out to Wallingford and see the show!

Les Romanesques runs from Sept 22nd through October 8th at Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford.

Reservations: BrownPaperTickets.org

Posted by Ronald Holden at September 19, 2005 4:26 PM

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