Final Days in Toulouse

Our last two shows in Toulouse went exceptionally well. Number two was actually an added show, which turned out to be our most lively audience. They were in on the idea from the beginning, and caught a lot of the humor, whether intended or unintended. Afterwards, we headed over to the café and had a quick pint, then a group of us bustled over to the metro to get to our favorite creperie before it closed.

The Toulosan Metro seems to be the antithesis of my earlier idea of “Technologie Francaise”. I rode it a few times over ten years ago when the system was fairly new – and I vaguely remembered it being completely automated and modern. It's a nice poster child for the tech sector of Toulouse, home to Aerobus and the European Space Agency. Getting to ride it as a commuter for twelve days, I have to say that there are aspects of it that New York could learn from. The cars are much smaller (less than a third the size of the subway), but Toulouse is a much smaller city. Rush hour is crowded, but less so than New York, and aside from a slightly different personal space aesthetic, not unlike rush hour in any city. The tempo is a city’s tempo, which means you choose your path and stick to it or you are herded by those with stronger pedestrian wills. All that said we rarely waited more than five minutes for a train. Like most European cities, the Metro does close late at night, but we were good kids and either headed home or at least were nearby our hotels by then most nights.

The creperie had now become our favorite late night haunt. Aside from a drunk Brit who tried to worm his way into our table and conversation (which seemed fishy from the beginning so it was dealt with quickly by yours truly), the meal again was one of our best. We asked our waiter when they close, and he said “Whenever we feel like it.” Much vin de table rouge was had, savory and sweet crepes alike devoured, French cognates were discussed and bandied about successfully, pun-fully and painfully, and in the end, our new friend the waiter poured us all a quick shot of Armagnac to warm us up for the walk home.

Last day of the show we awoke to our only perfectly sunny day in Toulouse. Kristin and I took a walk to Place Capitole where we took café and croissant at our usual, and watched as they erected the Christmas Market which we would miss by a day. We then went to the Hotel du Grand Balcon, to see what we thought was an exhibit about St.-Exupery. Turns out it was just three photos of the trio of Aeropostale greats – big ones that I had never seen before – of St.-Ex, Jean Mermoz, and Guillaumet smack in the middle. Having just played Guillaumet in the musical reading of “St.-Ex.” at Sundance not two weeks prior, it made me smile.

After that we headed toward the canal for a walk. Before we reached it, we found St. Aubins cathedral, a gothic masterpiece that managed to survive the purge during the revolution by being deemed a “temple of reason” by local denizens. Even with that, much of the artwork and stained glass is damaged. We walked in and heard a rather authoritarian voice echoing through the cathedral. We thought there may be a mass going on, but it turned out to be restorers working on one of the white marble pulpits. The majesty and the history of the place was inspiring, and a little eerie at the same time. Particularly poignant was the WWI memorial of fallen Toulosan soldiers. History and faith have mixed in a volatile way in France, and places like St. Aubins are visceral reminders.

After the cathedral, we looped southward along the canal, enjoying the sunshine and the air, and stumbled across a lovely little museum called Musee George Labit. Housed in a late 1800’s Orientalism style villa, the collection was the private collection of colonial explorer George Labit, who began collecting the items during his time in the Indochina campaign. It is a small collection by some standards, but exquisite, ranging from Egyptian to Tibetan and Chinese works, Japanese prints and Indian statuary. Not unlike the Rubin museum in New York, the museum is a collection of artifacts that will probably never be able to be reproduced as it was assembled in many cases before Westernization and exploitation was rampant. It was especially interesting to see the Buddhist and Hindu sculpture after visiting St. Aubins. The torture and suffering so prominent in Christian iconography was in stark contrast to the compassionate and easy beatific smiles of the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and Hindu figures.

We grabbed a quick lunch back at Place Capitole where we bumped into John. It was great to have a compatriot and cafe conversation on the main square. We then headed to the theatre and filmed a quick promo video for the piece. Two hours later left us with time to kill before the final show at ten o’clock. What else to do but eat? We went in search of an open restaurant, not an easy feat in the mostly residential neighborhood of St. Cyprien. We walked around with John for a little while, and as it was a day for such discoveries, stumbled across a little neighborhood restaurant with a 12 Euro dinner menu. It was the kind of restaurant we had been hoping for the whole trip – a totally neighborhood, wife and husband family run place, where at first it seemed as if we might not be able to be seated as we didn’t have a reservation. I had boudin (blood sausage) and duck, and Kristin had an enormous half chicken and frites. The meal was a decadent, wonderful and cheap final dinner in France. If only we’d have several more hours to enjoy it – but alas, we had to go to the theatre for our final show.

I will miss this group of people and Toulouse. It was nice to be in a cosmopolitan, classic European city – easy to walk, lots of sights and cafes and markets – with enough time to get into an enjoyable rhythm of everyday life. Luckily, the artistic powers that be fully intend to market the piece and try for tours and festival dates for next year. So hopefully there will be more “I/O” stories to come, and more European cities we have the opportunity to explore. As we live in the East Village, we have a not dissimilar lifestyle already to our adopted one in Toulouse. We went to our local little Polish diner for brunch this morning, and while the coffee and croissants are not nearly as good, I am happy to be home.

Opening Night of "I/O"

So the evening went very well. No major computer glitches or sound drop outs, no unrecoverable lighting transitions or botched choreographic cues, and if you'd seen the complexity of some of this stuff, you'd know that that was a major achievement in an of itself.

The new and rather exciting element that was added into the mix this time was the audience itself. For those of you not familiar with the concept of "I/O", it is not your traditional proscenium theatre piece. It takes place in an open space of about 100m by 100m, in this case the black box at Theatre Garonne, almost more of an environmental gallery installation space. Throughout the piece we move not only ourselves, but speaker rigs and their cables all around the space to form different configurations that completely alter the soundscape in the space. Added to this were the lights - helping to define the space as well with different shapes and palletes. All of these things were interwoven in such a way as to be cued off of each other visually and audibly - with a random factor for some of the material adding a little spice to the mix. Navigating through a hundred other bodies in the space was one of the major questions we were going to face for the night, and added another major random factor. At the workshop in New York, there were only two dozen or so invited guests to the final presentation, so we were a little unsure how that many bodies would affect the flow of the work.

But as I mentioned, it ran really smoothly. The audience did begin by sitting on the floor, so it took some time and a little prodding by the director and Kristin in the audience to get them to stand and move about the space as intended. But once the lights started shifting from idea to idea, and the speakers started moving, they caught on.

Two favorite moments for me: During the first shift a pool of light came up around my speaker - whereupon I was supposed to go an sit by it in the light. About five audience members were sitting in the light, and they calmly looked up and didn't move (it was early on in the piece). So I wove my way through them, placed my chair and sat, and proceeded with the singing. The second moment was later in the piece, beginning the 'Line' section - by then a good group of people had caught on to the concept and were trying to anticipate what would come next. So as I was walking toward them in the 'Line' configuration, they abruptly tried to get out the way, thinking I was going to walk though the audience - but as the choreography would have it, I was set to turn to the left right at about where they were standing and continue through the space. I do and did appreciate their awareness and consideration, however!

European modern theatre audiences are generally more reserved by comparison to more mainstream American theatre audiences. That said, we did recieve three ovations (standing - albeit there were no chairs anyway), and people seemed genuinely intrigued and engaged. We're still not quite sure what the overall effect of the piece is - and some sections will no doubt be tweaked as of our experiences here in this space. Apparently at the talkback after the show, audience members really did dive into the idea of man and machine and our strange technological interdependant relationship. Joe (the composer) said that the piece was meant to raise the question, but not judge or answer in any way what that relationship is meant to be. I can run to all sorts of 'Bladerunner' parallels in my own head, but there is something even more stark and challenging about "I/O" than that version of sci-fi that I like - it defies simple theatrical definition in its use of space and sound and really makes us come to our own questions and conclusions about technology and our relationship with it.

Day of Show

Been a bad blogger - my apologies. The last two days were full to the brim. Rehearsal day before yesterday was spent tightening 'Line' even more, and on 'Circle', one of the more complex sonic sections. But before that, we (John, Kristin, and I) went shopping for un petit fete. Being a true French theatre, the green room at Theatre Garonne has a fully functional kitchen, and we recieved permission from the powers that be to use it! So we hit the market and stocked up with all kinds of goodies: Chabichout cheese, ENORMOUS oyster mushrooms, pork and chicken breast. And of course wine. Wonderful wine. I found a bottle of one of my favorites, a Minvervois, for a mere 4 Euro. At any rate, after an exhausting rehearsal, I set about with the great help of the cast cooking. The end result: grilled pan cooked chicken and pork stuffed cutlets with parsley, garlic, and cashews, topped off with a butter oyster mushroom sauce. A huge French style salad with hard boiled egg, and for dessert, sauteed pears with fresh goat cheese and a raspberry wine reduction. We had the perfect amount of food, and the company was great - our French technicians, Stephan, Stefan and Rob joined the meal. We managed to fill our bellies, chat and listen to music, and clean the place all before midnight.

The walk home was particularly lovely. John, ever so subtly, suggested we walk across another bridge than Pont Neuf as it might be quicker. Turned out the view was the payoff. The entire city was lit - Toulouse has a artistic lightscape across most of its public buildings, and so we saw Pont Neuf, St Sernin, the Beaux Arts Ecole all lit up in multi-colored splendor. We hit a small bar just in time for last call by the hotel, (had a great Belgian beer) and called it a night. Party hard, work harder, as it were.

Which led to yesterday's rehearsal. Intense, in costume, and very warm in the theatre. I can only imagine how steamy it will be with a full house. We're all hoping they turn the heat down a little as the lights are by far warm enough for our purposes. But we did manage to (knock on wood) get through the show fairly intact, and without too many train wrecks. We did another run for an audience consisting of the Theatre Garonne staff last night, and they seemed very engaged. They also recorded the performance, and no audience members were harmed in the taping of "I/O". I wish I had a gastronomic report for the day to make you all jealous in cyber-land, but for lunch we ate the left-over cheese from the fete and two deli sandwiches (which were brie, beurre and ham - so maybe that's a little jealousy potential).

After rehearsal is another story, however. Thinking something light might be the way to go, we trusted in John's navigational ability once more, and he guided us to a creperie he remembered spotting by the Universite. For the cheapest meal we've had in Toulouse, it may also be the best. 6 Euro brought a full dinner plate sized crepe to the table, complete with bechamel sauce, mushrooms, emmental and ham. We of course had to split a pear and chocolate crepe for dessert. Of course.

Today has us doing some point work on movement, and another run. Opening night tonight, show at 8 pm. Here we go!

Rain and Cheese and Art Moderne

Yesterday was a tough day. We awoke fairly early and caught breakfast at the hotel. Our hotel, le Hotel de France, is a cute little two star deal right off of Place Wilson. For location, it could not be better – it is smack in the heart of the busy restaurant and bar district. There is a stunning indoor market across the street from us, brasseries and cafes galore, and major department stores like Gallerie Lafayette three blocks away. For those of you familiar with stays at European two star hotels, unlike most, ours has hot water that doesn’t give out after one shower, and the rooms are almost spacious compared to a Novotel or the like. I would stay here again if we needed to.

But back to the day: we got out and moving before rehearsal and headed to Les Abbatoirs – the modern art museum not far from the theatre. On the left bank of the Garonne, it’s housed in what used to be slaughterhouses. The outside is fairly unassuming, but the inside is quite stunning – high brick arches and colonnades make a perfect gallery space. I can see why people like the museum – it is ideal for a single artist exhibit like the Saura one upstairs we visited. All in all, the gallery did not blow my socks off. Not sure what I was expecting, but many modern art museums leave me that way – sort of disaffected. They did interestingly have a number of 17th and 18th century paintings on loan from Les Augustins throughout the museum. They were paired in many cases with modern works. These for my eye were by far the more interesting studies in the space.

Rehearsal was spent on the most physically intense section of “I/O” known as ‘Line’. In it, the six speakers are placed in (you guessed it) a line about two meters apart from each other. We then proceed in a pulse assembly line fashion around a set track. Various auditory and visual cues trigger certain choreographic motifs for everyone as a group and individuals. The entire energy and action of the section increases until by the end of it, we are sprinting headlong into oblivion. Doing this fifteen minute section requires a lot of focus and physical energy. Also, adding in the lights was intriguing – the lighting plot is designed so that when we leave the ‘track’, we disappear into darkness. It’s very intense. Four hours straight and I was wiped. My calves and knees are more than protesting a little this morning.

So there was only one thing to do: salve our tired bodies and minds with fondue. Now I know what you’re thinking, “Fondue. How quaint.” But this ain’t your swinging seventies fondue. We sat down (Kristin, John, Robert and I) and saw over at another table a sort of medieval contraption into which an entire half wheel of cheese was strapped. Little did we know we were in for the same delight. We ordered two beef fondue platters, and two cheese fondue platters. And the delight came. The device was none other than a heat lamp that you raised or lowered the cheese wheel on. The lamp then melted the cheese, which when finished melting, you proceeded to tilt on a very ingeniously designed incline toward your plate. You then gently scraped the melted goodness onto your plate with a wooden paddle.

The beef fondue was a more traditional pot of boiling oil type of fondue, where you cooked the meat to your own liking. The piece de la resistance was that instead of bread, there was a basket of boiled potatoes. Melted emmental on boiled potatoes. It nearly made me cry. Bellies full of melted cheesy goodness, we trod home through the winding cobblestone streets, not caring one bit about the rain coming down as we were heated through and through by a warmth more than mufflers and down jackets provide.

Rain again today in Toulouse. But it is the gentle, cold reassuring rain that merely lets you know it is not summer, not the harsh winter rains or wind that are just around the corner. I rather like Fall rains, especially French ones. We are headed to market to procure goods for a feast tonight. Being a true French theatre, the green room at Theatre Garonne has a fully functioning kitchen, where I am planning to cook for the cast tonight based on what we buy at the market for an after rehearsal dinner. And considering that we are revisiting ‘Line’, it will need be a hearty feast indeed.

Day Two-louse

Day two started with a nice sleep in. It was misting in Toulouse this morning, a nice grey mist sweeping up the river Garonne. One that did a fine job of cooling the thousands of Beaujolais hangovers the morning after as the city woke up and went back to work. It was interesting – Toulouse is very much a late night town. At about three a.m. it sounded raucous outside our hotel window, and not unlike our beloved East Village. A fight had broken out that traveled down the allee drunkenly toward Doppler oblivion. Then about thirty minutes later there was a reverie between a drunken French reveler and a drunken Englishman. They did their best to communicate, both in a sing-song inebriated mixture of the two languages. Even at three a.m. it was entertaining.

But none of that kept us from meeting the day at 10 o’clock with breakfast in the room of croissant, comfiture, coffee and tea. After a workout, it was out to pick up some lunch for later, and then off to the theatre. Jet lag didn’t seem to touch us much – perhaps being exhausted from an entire day of travel really is the best way to beat it.

Theatre Garonne is across the Garonne river on the west side of the town in several former Republique municipal buildings. It is a chic mixture of industrial modern architecture built into 19th century surroundings, a uniquely French combination, set tidily into the corner of what seems to be a very unprepossessing residential neighborhood. The main theatre is a stunning proscenium space. The Atelier, which we are in, is a dense black box, which will give our piece a vastly richer soundscape than the open concrete warehouse we rehearsed at in New York. The day was mainly spent getting used to the space – and as things run on a slightly more laid back time schedule theatrically speaking in France, this was a good acclimatization to the environs. Besides one blown microphone headset, the day was well spent, getting through the reorientation of the prologue for the new space, and most of the first section. Tomorrow we’ll get more in the belly of the beast as we get into the third and fourth sections, by far the more complicated choreographically speaking. That’s all I have for now. More croissant and café crème no doubt in the morning, and off to the theatre again. These are the woodshed days, after all. Le Jour Bois Hatchet, perhaps? Probably not.

Arrivals and Day One so far...

Well, Charles de Gaulle airport has not changed much. We arrived at CDG after an uneventful red eye. Decent food, and I had half a plate of cous-cous spilled in my lap - but the young attendant was so french and fabulous, I didn't mind so much. He did offer me champagne for my troubles. I declined, thinking a hangover before even landing wouldn't be such a good idea.

But back to CDG - we arrived, and of course our flight was delayed an hour. So most of the company curled up for a power nap at the gate. Luckily, John and David were awake when they switched the gate and announced at the same time they were boarding. We dusted the sleep from our eyes, hobbled over to the gate, and boarded a little bus that proceeded to sit for thirty more minutes on the tarmac. Eventually, it drove over to our waiting plane, on the other side of Terminal 2.

I must pause here and relate a story from the very first time I backpacked around France. I was traveling with two dear friends, we were fresh out of high school. I'm not sure how it started, but we were coming from Germany into France, transferring from the ICE high speed train to the TGV. My buddy Girard and I had both lived in Germany as kids, and we of course were waxing rhapsodic about the efficiency and timeliness and modernity of the DB (German train system). After a while, this started to bug our travel mate Wick, who spoke French and was a definitive Francophile. We were after all going to visit his friends for Bastille Day. Finally Wick spoke up and said something to the effect of just wait until you see the TGV - it'll blow the Germans away. It's Technologie de Francaise!

Needless to say, we arrived at our transfer point for the TGV and it was running late. For the rest of the trip, anytime anything was late, or like an escalator into the Metro that was broken, it became "Technologie Francaise!" CDG was very definitely Technologie Francaise yesterday.

But as John Rose put it last night at dinner, I can put up with a lot of stuff for a free trip to France. Indeed John, indeed. And the first creme cafe and croissant this morning at a little cafe right off Place Capitole was breathtaking. It's a good reminder, Technologie Francaise included, to just slow down and enjoy. Not everything needs to be on time, exactly when it's supposed to be. What exactly does that mean, 'on time' anyway? Time is fleeting - there's no actual way to be 'on it'. By the time you'd be 'on it', it'd be passed. Or past. Gone, at any rate.

We then hit the little market and had a shopping accident (new leather purse for Kristin, new black belt for me since I forgot mine), and went to St Sernin's Basilica. There was a mass going on, so we didn't wander too much - but it is grand in it's pre-gothic splendor. The Musee-Saint Raymond right next door is a tidy little museum with a grand collection of artifacts from Roman and early Christian Toulouse, much of it found accidentally when they renovated the abbey or surrounding buildings. Lots of Roman busts, a few lovely mosaics, and some astonishingly detailed jewelry.

And lunch. Let's not forget lunch. Two salads, one a warm goat cheese with lardon (French bacon), the other a salade St. George - duck, chicken livers, tomato and cucumber. Both serious arterial commitments, and so good.

It's siesta hour now, so we are resting. Most shops are closed. Plan for the evening includes theatre, movie, and/or a jazz club. And of course, the Beaujolais is out as of tonight. We shall see.

Leaving for France Tonight

So it would seem this will continue as my travel blog. We leave tonight, on the 'red eye' - thankfully the Air France strike is finished as of this morning. Kristin and I still have to finish packing, although now that sort of thing is an easy and familiar routine to both of us. Dig out the converters, find the travel clock and iron, collect the Euros stashed in the bottom of the change basket or magneted to the fridge from last time. Already I am excited about the prospect of creme cafe and croissant at some little corner cafe. To catch this blog up a little, the reason we are going is that I have been involved with a wonderfully edgy and artistic piece called "I/O" - short for "Input/Output" with director Phil Soltanoff and composer Joe Diebes. We workshopped the piece for a month here in New York, and are premiering it for the Festival Novellum at Theatre Garonne in Toulouse.

A link to Theatre Garonne's website and listing for "I/O"

More on the piece as rehearsals develop. We'll be staying at the Hotel de France near Place Wilson, smack in the center of town. Herr Direktor, Phil, says there is a wonderful market right there, which I am certainly looking forward to. And there are certainly oodles of restaurants and things to do within walking distance.

But I thought to myself that it's been nearly five years since I was last in the south of France. Occitan - so different from the North. Last time I was there I was a very different person: tracking the Cathar Heresy, doing some serious soul searching, trying to figure out if New York and I were through or if I was heading back into the fray to be a writer or an actor or both. Needless to say, both - although it is highly ironic that now I am headed back as a singer in a rather avant-garde theatrical work. On a side note, a dear friend of mine, John Rose, is also involved in this piece - he and I were privvy to the fateful and crazy JC Superstar tour in '01 that ended when the towers fell. We're much happier to be headed back in a different era - and very happy that we won't have to seek asylum in France thanks to Obama's victory. I will be curious to see what the actual 'on the ground' feelings are, especially as Toulouse is a university cum cutting-edge tech town.

And so the rose colored stone of Toulouse beckons, the linden lined Canal du Midi beckons, the fairytale fortifications of mountaintop castles beckon, and hefty servings of foie gras and cassoulet beckon. Fall in l'Occitane. A perfect time to be in... well, you know.