La Rire Voyageur // A Won Woman Show
Le Rire Voyageur (SAD/France): A Won Woman Show
Zagrebačko kazalište lutaka – Scena Travno
29.11.2009., 20:00
Duration: 75 min
Ticket price: 70 kn
“Stay quiet and be beautiful!, they say. But, what if I'm not beautiful? What should I do? … Shout?“, might be the essence of Laura's point of view, explicated through the life of Gladys, her character. Gladys is a middle-aged woman who always tried to be the woman she was told she was supposed to be. “Gladys! You were born to get married“, her Mother and Father would say. Unfortunately, she is slightly eccentric and doesn't quite fit in the imposed frames, no matter how hard she tries. At times she relaxes and goes completely crazy until she recalls what she has been told she should be. “If you had only married a nice Doctor, your life would have been okay, Gladys!“ “But I did marry a nice Doctor!“ “Oh, um, yeah… Then what went wrong?“
In the form of conventional Gladys, Laura Herts attends a concert of a famous wild female rock star she adores. She ends up on stage “by mistake“, confronted with the spectators. Slowly but surely, she dismisses the initial uneasiness, basks in the lights of attention and loses control over her middle-aged self as she becomes possessed with the ancient spirit of our sister Janis Joplin. Gladys transforms into the person she really is, as emancipation is imposed on her by the lack of reality in all the dreams, myths and fairy tales that Mom and Dad talked about.
This goofy, energetic clown studied dance and visual art at The Baltimore School for the Arts and started a worldwide career as an eighteen-year-old. In Brussels, she studied at the International school of theatre Lassaad, and then followed the teachings of Jacques Lecoq, Daniel Stein, Philippe Gaulier, Stanislav Borgeofski and Zigmund Mollic. Laura created several “one woman shows“ – “A Won Woman Show“ was preceded by “The Last Tangle In Paradise“ (1992) and “Electric Lazy Land“ (1997). In 2001 she founded the travelling laughter company, Le Rire Voyageur.
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“Laura Herts is a tornado, a true hurricane sweeping everyone off their feet. (…) Her face and body appear elastic and her each grimace is a true venture.“
La Nouvelle République
“Using a nasal voice, she puts herself in the shoes of an abandoned American woman, exclaiming ‘Oh my God!’ every two minutes, mocking women obsessed with beauty and aesthetic surgery. The audience had no problem giving in to her burlesque deliriums, grave “sodomies”, laughing at each of her mimics worthy Tex Avery’s cartoons or Edika’ comics.”
Les Nouvelles Caledoniennes
“Clown lady practicing a vitamin humour. (…) Such face, such gesture control! She exempts noone: neither the Americans visiting Paris, nor herself and definitely not the first row of spectators she imposes the role of her mother, her husband or her French lover upon… (…) It is a truly worthy descendant of its predecessors, the Marx Brothers. Beware those of you sitting near stage, you have been warned!“
A.B., L'Hedo Vaucluse
Concept and interpretation: Laura Herts
Produced by: Cie Le Rire Voyageur
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