Paris’s theatre scene is getting rather daring these days. Just last month, when Stéphane Lissner, the artistic director of La Scala, came to see the Theatre du Chatelet’s production of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide, he was so shocked by the production (which closed at the end of December) that he cancelled the Milan run, which had been scheduled for June.

Evidently, he was not forewarned that the production featured dancing Bushes and Blairs (oh my !). Of course, he blamed his decision on the fact that the chorus was dancing at all (“I don’t know how such a thing would be taken in Milan,” he told Le Figaro). Since then, he and the director, Robert Carsen, have reached an agreement on how to make the production more "appropriate" for an Italian audience, and it will fun as scheduled.

But the directors are on a roll, offending critics and audience members left and right. Christian Colin earned the ire of Pierre Assouline last week for his adaptation of Marivaux’s La double inconstance, [The Inconstant Lovers, in English] playing at the Theatre National du Chaillot until February 3rd.

Marivaux, the most important French playwright of the 18th century, wrote such elegant and refined prose that his name has become synonymous with light-hearted gallantries: see marivaudage. Nevertheless, director Christian Colin set himself the task of giving the play a contemporary mise-en-scène. And according to Assouline, the “deconstructed, postmodern” production virtually “assassinates” Marivaux, so much so that the audience "might think it is actually at The Battle of Armani by Victor Hugo Boss."

Still, we want to see for ourselves, if for no other reason than because we have a healthy appreciation for the director’s son, Grégoire, who is in the production. We bet Grégoire can marivauder like nobody’s business.

La double inconstance
Tickets, 12-27 €.
Théâtre National de Chaillot
1 place du Trocadéro 75116 Paris
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Next on our list is the French adaptation of the Broadway musical Cabaret—which is playing at the Folies Bergère through March 31st. It seems more or less the daring Sam Mendes production which opened a few years back at Studio 54 in NY—which was outstanding-- but how much cooler is the Folies Bergère than Studio in Parisist’s opinion ? Much. (Otherwise we would work at Gothamist). Particularly since the Folies Bergère is actually a cabaret and music hall, which has welcomed the likes of Edouard Manet, Charlie Chaplin, and Charles Trenet, rather than a New York disco which can boast Andy Warhol, Mick Jagger and What’s My Line?. (We leave you to draw your own comparison).

Now all that remains is to see how they translate “Wilkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome” for a French audience… will it be “Wilkommen, Welcome, Bienvenue?”

Les Folies Bergère
32, rue Richer - 75009 Paris
Tickets 25 € à 80 €
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Some directors don't care about raising eyebrows, as long as their political consciences are at peace. So when the Austrian playwright Peter Handke made the misguided decision to attend Slobodan Milosovic’s funeral back in March 2006, the director of the Comédie Française, Marcel Bozonnet, cancelled the slated production of Handke’s play, Voyage au pays sonore ou l'Art de la question, which would have run at le Vieux Colombier right about now. Bozonnet needed a replacement, and being apparently a man with a sense of theatricality (admittedly useful in his profession) chose to replace it with a play called Orgie.

First produced in 1968, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s last play is referred to by Le Monde as “a spectacle of horror and repulsion.” “The orgy here,” Le Monde warns, to avoid disappointing theatergoers, “is that of ancient ceremonies, of excessive rites of initiation, of mysteries, of bloody sacrifices.” Just so we’re clear.

Orgie, de Pier Paolo Pasolini, traduction de Danièle Sallenave, mise en scène de Marcel Bozonnet, avec Cécile Brune, Lucile Arché, et Alain Fromager. Comédie-Française.
Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier, 21 rue du Vieux-Colombier, Paris 6e.
Tél. : 01-44-39-87-00-01.
Tickets 10 € à 28 €.
Until 24 février.