Boris Vian (1920-59), writer, film actor, engineer, jazz musician and translator (particularly of American crime fiction), is best known for the antiwar song “Le Déserteur”. His plays are less well known and even his most famous novel, L’Ecume des jours, was only fully appreciated after his death. 1955’s Le Chasseur français was not performed until 1970. It is a vaudeville type musical comedy, set apart by its use of Parisian slang and its unconventional characters: an aristocratic lady hooked on film noir and seeking sexual excitement with strangers; a red-wine-glugging priest who goes to cabaret shows in plain clothes; a chauffeur with a shady past; a detective novelist who has to wind himself up by acting out the crimes he writes about. The ‘film noir’ overtones are both evoked and satirised. Vian also ironically identifies several well-known personalities from French radio and television. In the post-war/’existentialist’ crisis of the late 1950s - but perhaps at other times too - many of the characters and the worlds they construct or inhabit are not what they seem, as they negotiate double, or even triple, identities, in an overtly, multiply critical and yet hilarious theatricality.
CAST
Roger Baines – Carlos
Amelia Daniels – Clémentine
Daisy Dodsworth – Deuxième machiniste
Mae Duval – Alexandre de Marillac / Jacques Martin / Tom Collins
Julia Hook – Ricardo
Dominique Limon –Blairjuste, Joseph
Erwann Limon –Brique
Eugenia Loffredo – Mme Benzine
Beth Love –Premier machiniste
Selin Maelger – Virgile
Claudine Tourniaire– Angéline
Jack Waterman – André
Ralph Yarrow - Néron
Direction – Ralph Yarrow, Erwann Limon
Production manager – Claudine Tourniaire
Stage managers– Katie Howell, Mukuka Jumah
Lighting design – Riley Flaunty
Sound and projection – Amira Hollis
Technician – Tory Simpson
Drama Studio administrator – Sarah Nacmanson
Costumes and props – Mae Duval, Julia Hook
Musical direction – Bob and Suzie Hanna, Erwann Limon
Poster – Suzie Hanna
Website, publicity and school liaison – Roger Baines
Programme – Claudine Tourniaire
Photos Denzel Wright and Ilse Renaudie
Ushers - Bénédicte Rebouillat, Dillon Gurney, Edward Hicks, Rachel Macneill, Robbyn Chappell-Wood, Carolina Cavalcanti-Mendes Da Silva, Rachel MacNeill, Oli Hurley
Thanks to Julia Hook, Amanda Greenway and the Maddermarket Theatre, Chad Mason, and to the retiring Rob Little, thank you for many years of support!
