A few independent spirits gather in a place that was once a stage for conjurors and cabaret performers. For a whole night they conspire together, creating group frenzy all over again, rediscovering a sense of longing. Here we find all kinds of adventurers: born improvisation-artists, sentimental balled singers, cabaret singers, second-rate poets, and a few friends who easily get excited. They give voice to saucy bragging, or tear-jerking romances. What is revived by the reawakening of these cabaret songs, and other similar songs, has to do with the spirit of this place. Most of the modern aesthetic or political revolution have been partially entwined with the spirit of cabaret. That's no accident. This place, locked away yet easily accessible to anyone, permits all excesses, all transgressions, every horror.

 

Here, presumably, the idea is not to try to overthrow society, but rather to create from a subcutaneous energy, from a repertoire that links past, present and future, and to bring impatience or extravagance (back) into play, and help them get (back) on their feet. But perhaps that amounts to the same thing. The arena is the night - one of those nights where anything can happen. It is unbelievably serious and, at the same time, absolutely unserious, sometimes even a bit mocking. There's a drama, a narrative, a history told the way it's told in a film, going from sunset to sunrise. Here everything is revue-orientated, like the variety theatre, where everyone sings his own little song, ranging from the belle epoque to that of Godard or Gainsbourg, with a detour via our own age. The shadows of the feverish Germany of the twenties drift by, of the forgotten Paris of the thirties, of Piaf, Marlene, Faßbinder and Ferré, the shadows of the bit-parts of French cinema, of Francis Blanche, or of Bourvil with Mocky. But nothing archeological: just the necessities of the present moment, a way of feeling the reality of desire that can only be expressed under particular circumstances.

 

This night is the creation of situations, with an orchestra of variable constitution in which resounds the spirit of Noël Akchoté, the piano of Charlie O., the voice of Giovanni Cacciola and Costes, the guitar and voice of Red, the bass of John Greaves, the songs of Unsere Lieblinge and the sounds of Christian Ludwig Meyer. Far away from the studio, from obsessive hygiene and general simulation, words, sentences and melodies flit by and come back to life, telling of an existence that blazes in every corner, and

of the insatiable night's unbridled laughter.

 

Based freely on texts and ideas by Thierry Jousse

(Translation by Richard Toop)