Bal Trap by Xavier Durringer
Translated by David Furlong and Fanny Dulin, directed by David Furlong
May 2011: Origin Theatre NYU, Off Broadway
October 2007: Stoked Festival, London
©éditions THÉÂTRALES, Paris for the original text.
Présentation of the play Bal Trap by Xavier Durringer
Lulu and Gino are coming back to the place where they first met in order to get their Love back. They’re lost and they don’t know what happened to them. Everyday life has killed love. Muso and Bubble are meeting for the first time, hesitant between their desire to discover each other and the fear of risking and losing. Words in Bal Trap are sharp and violent: the language of the play is direct, crude. Very realistic. And the rythm makes most of the play a comedy.
« I grew up in the Suburbs of Paris, in the North Suburbia. This is a world I know quite well and I write about what I know. It’s an observation. »
Xavier Durringer -The French Mark Ravenhill
Xavier Durringer was born in 1963 in Paris. He is now one of the most important playwrights in France. His work has been translated into seven languages. In London, Mark Ravenhill’s translation of « A desire to kill on the tip of the tongue » was produced in 1997 at the Royal Court. Other credits include: La nuit à l’envers (Comédie Française), La Quille (National Theatre of Strasbourg), Surfeurs (Avignon International Festival). He also directed « Oh Pardon, tu dormais » a play written and played by Jane Birkin. Now a succesful film director, he also directed La Nage indienne, La Conquete about Nicolas Sarkozy, and Ne m’abandonne pas for French television.
BAL TRAP is one of his earliest plays. Bal Trap was translated into seven languages and toured all around the world, except in the Uk: It has never been translated nor performed in English before.
The realism
In Bal Trap, the situation is very simple: a couple is at the edge of breaking up, another one is meeting for the first time. The play is short. Only four characters. It is sharp and simple. And it’s realistic. The production has already been workshoped and conceived as a situation which could happen out of a stage: in a pub, in a ware-house… The situation is your venue. The story is happening exactly where the performance is taking place, so the characters are real. Characters from the street, they are real people dealing with irrational feelings, desperate for their love and their expectations, their love and their loss.
We want to break entirely the boundaries with the audience and the stage. The action is taking place among the audience. This creates a new spo-taneity, and a « bigger than life » effect. It‟s striking and it brings theatre back to real people.
The live music
In all the work of the company so far, the sound and the music has always been a major part.
Created with Hannah Lean (Lulu), Fanny Dulin (Bubble), John Mc Quaid (Muso), Robert Shilton (Gino) and Dilan Hookoomsing (The Musician).