Sunday, July 25, 2010

Accosted by the Off


Here are some pictures of the street tactics of the Off performers in the Avignon festival. The Avignon Festival consists of two theatrical concepts: the professional troupes performing in the big theatres, which you have to reserve months in advance, and the 'Off,' the informal grass-root casts consisting of gappies, friends and other drama hacks, who perform in any possible space: cellars, pocket theatres with twenty minute turn-overs... It's the Off that have to attach the posters in precarious places, hand out flyers and parade about the medieval streets in attention-seeking costumes.
Did you know that the Avignon Festival, rival to Edinburgh, has been around since 1947, when Jean Vilar performed three plays: the Bard's Richard II, Paul Claudel's Tobie et Sara, and Maurice Clavel's La Terrace du Midi in the Papal Palace itself? The first Festival was therefore defined as a festival celebrating unknown works and modern scripts.











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