Three Old Maids

Three Old Maids

Writing by Alejandro Jodorowsky
Directed by : Jean-Michel d’Hoop
Traduction : Brontis Jodorowsky

Show created in 2009.

« Three Old Maids » In brief…
This is the story of GARGA, a centennial maid and the 88-year-old twins, GRAZIA and MELIZA, faded aristocrats, decrepit and almost starving, who still believe in Prince Charming.
A roll of the dice will decide who of Grazia or Meliza will go to the ball to find the knight in shining armour who will bring them an offspring and well-being.
Armed with the remains of the false teeth they share, wearing a wig to hide her balding head and a string of faux pearls, Grazia heads off to the ball.
All of this of course will unfold with Jodorowsky’s customary sharp wit.
Meanwhile, Meliza will revisit the ambiguous relationship she had with her father in a dreamlike role play. This childlike role play will soon prove to be dangerous and become a prism through which the unspeakable can be told.
Here the puppets fully come into their own to become a play within the play, to play make-believe, working to confuse the audience and the actors between fiction and reality, embodiment and distancing, manipulation and submission.
Grazia comes back worse than ever: unmasked and humiliated by the crowd, she didn’t even manage to scrounge a few appetizers.
The old maids feel the end is close (and they are starving!). While they teeter on the brink of despair, suddenly a miracle happens! Fiction or reality?

An intriguing canvas for taxidermist actors, puppets and assorted objects, which can hold its head high when compared to either Goya’s monsters or to surrealists of all kinds. A polysemic tale reminding us that we should not always trust appearances, family stories, clichés and other props of convenience.
A fable that gets to the bottom of myths, by dissecting them, chewing them over, ruminating them again and again to generate a new pulp and to extract new meanings in a carnival-like ritual.

Cast

With Cyril Briant, Sébastien Chollet, Pierre Jacqmin et Coralie Vanderlinden. Costumes and puppets Natacha Belova. Set design Aurélie Deloche. Music Eric Bribosia. Final Music Venus “Wanda Wultz”. Vocal Isabelle Fontaine. Light Nathalie Borlée. Technical direction Benoît Ausloos. Assistant director Odile Ramelot. Traduction Brontis Jodorowsky. Production manager Catherine Ansay.

© photo: Point Zéro, Natacha Belova, Odile Ramelot.

Press review

An hour and a quarter of theatrical madness. (…) Schizophrenia, old age, decay, death, family… so many themes are broached in this crazy puppet show. A world in which the lines are thrown at the recipients like cruel sentences, close to disillusionment and despair yet staying miraculously full of humour. The actors bearing the life-size puppets offer an outstanding and unrelenting performance which enhances the aesthetics of this extraordinary theatrical experience. 
Vers L’Avenir, Ariane Bilteryst

Sold out! These are words that many directors dream of. Jean-Michel d’Hoop is delighted to see them posted for every performance of the Three Old Maids in Louvain-la-Neuve [Belgium]. (…) So, if you are lucky enough to get a chance to see them, go for it! After this we probably won’t have a chance to see them in Belgium for a while.
Le Soir, Jean-Marie Wynants

A crazy, funny and disturbing one hour and a quarter. (…) Jodorowsky – still as fond of spicy language – remains faithful to the backbone of his inspiration: sex and death merrily dancing on ruins. On stage, among the wreckage of a folding screen and a canopy bed, four actors officiate over this ritual and manipulate the three old maids. These amazing puppets created by Natacha Belova – furrowed, skeletal, hollow-eyed dolls, flushed with veins – are a troubling alchemy of life and death. And when they look their handler in the eye, the audience holds its breath in a deathly silence. This touches on the sacred. (…)
Le Vif/ L’Express, Michèle Friche

A show by Point Zéro in coproduction with l’Atelier Théâtral Jean Vilar, le Festival de Théâtre de Spa and le Théâtre de la Balsamine, with the support of La Commission d’Aide aux Projets Théâtraux (CAPT), Ministère de la Communauté française, Direction générale de la Culture and WBI. Realized with the support of Bruxelles Export.

CONTACT

Jean-Michel d’Hoop
jean-michel@pointzero.be

Nathalie Kamoun
nathalie@pointzero.be

 

Tel +32 (0)2 608 74 89
Rue du labeur 1 - 1070 Bruxelles

Technical directors
Loïc Le Foll
llf.loic@gmail.com

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