Play On

By a complete fluke, I discovered that a small international theater company, Cygnet https://www.cygnettheatreparis.com/eng-company, would be performing Twelfth Night in Montmartre. Opening night was Wednesday, July 17^th. So I purchased a ticket online and combed through maps for the location.

The performance began promptly at 7:30 P.M. (19:30). I set out well in advance to negotiate the two Metro lines and the search for the amphitheater where it was to take place. A good thing, too, since it’s tucked away into the side of the Butte Montmartre, on which Sacré Coeur sits. But even after taking the funicular up that final steep hill, strolling along the edge of the pavement in front of the basilica taking in the view, and hunting down the amphitheater, I was very early, so just hung out at the entrance observing the young actors scurrying around performing all their other theatrical tasks in preparation.

The amphitheater is small, and dates only to 1941 (the internet informed me), not Roman times like the Arènes de Lutèce, but still is charming. The crowd that had gradually gathered was finally admitted, and the show began in full daylight, though we were in the shade of trees and buildings across the street. The play's setting was updated to modern, mainly in a scruffy cabaret. The players were quite good. Many in the audience had self-catered, and there was wine for sale (at the bar of the “cabaret”) before the performance and during the intermission. All in all, a fun and interesting evening.

(And then the turnstile ticket machine wouldn’t take my ticket—or took it just barely, where I could still see it but not retrieve it to try in another machine, instead of passing it on through to register. And that was my last one. I’d brought four, thinking that was more than enough backup, forgetting the funicular takes the same tickets, so that that was exactly how many I needed. An Indian family came up behind me in the largely deserted station, parents and three daughters; the father helpfully kept telling me the ticket booth was closed for the night (of which, obviously, I was painfully aware). But then, completely randomly, someone came out through the gate meant for wheelchairs and such, and they as well as I—I felt quite justified in using it—passed through.)