Bordeaux, Day 1 (evening) - The 29th of November 2013

We reached Bordeaux late in the afternoon with the sole intent of still being able to watch some of the events of the "Novart Bordeaux 2013 Festival des Arts de la scène", which would be finishing the following day, so after having been dropped at the Gambetta square we headed to the hotel to leave our backpacks and soon after try to get some tickets for the evening performances.

The Gambetta English garden dating back to 1880 (left). La Porte Iovia (Jupiter) located in the Gambetta Square known as Porta Judea during the Medieval times, having later become known as Porte Dijeaux (right).

Partial view of La Place de la Bourse with Rue Saint Rémi, where our Hotel was located (left). The Fountain of the three Graces (the three daughters of Zeus, Aglaé, Euphrosyne and Thalie) in la Place de la Bourse (right).

We managed to buy tickets for the nine o'clock performance at the studio création of the TnBA (Théatre Nationale de Bourdeaux en Aquitaine) at a kiosque culture in the Place de la Comédie and were fairly disappointed to find out that most tickets for several other events we were interested in were sold out already.

This meant we had to either wander about till late in the evening or go back to the hotel and leave one hour before the show. Having noticed there was, what looked like a Christmas market fairly close to the Square we were at, to be precise at les allées de Tourny, we decided to head there. It was quite interesting as far as ideas for Christmas presents are concerned but also in terms of evening meals.

We sat down at one of the food stalls before making our long way to the TnBA along the river Garone.

The walk started at the "mirroir d'eau" of la Place de la Bourse which then under the lights looked rather different. It was fairly cold but the fact that we were both fascinated with what lay in front of us under the effects of the multiple lights helped us withstand the almost frozen blowing wind we were in no way used to.

We reached the Theatre a few minutes before the first performing dialogues for which we had not been able to buy tickets but under a lucky spell were informed that if we were interested we would be able to buy them locally, which we did.

Under normal circumstances watching four monologues - "Cet enfant", "Poucet", "Claustria" and "M. Mou" the same day would have sounded "hors norme" but they were so different from each other and the performing actors so exquisite in their approach that it was almost a unique luxury to have been able to witness such performances.

The young actors performing the last three monologues were brilliant, particularly Christophe Montenez and Julie Teuf. Special mention should be made to Jules Sagot, whose performance was second to none, despite the fact that I don't especially like comedy-dramas.

We got back to the hotel by tram and couldn't help talking about our cultural evening all the way. We were both tired but extremely happy with the Bordeaux theatrical experience, we had been looking forward to.

Note:

"Cet enfant" 
Adaptation of Joel Pommerat's texts 
Mise en scène - Zoé Gauchet
Artistic collaboration - Giulia Deline


"Poucet"
Text and mise en scène - Christophe Montenez
Artistic collaboration - Manuel Severi


"Claustria"
Adaptation from the romance Claustria by Régis Jauffret
Mise en scène - Julie Teuf
Artistic collaboration - Nanyadji Ka-Gara


"M. Mou"
Text and mise en scène - Jules Sagot
Artistic collaboration - Yacine Sif el Islam