Comédie Française

Desney managed to get us all tickets to the Comédie Française to see the (classic) Cyrano de Bergerac.

Desney went directly from work to the theatre. The kids and I got ready and left home after work and school. We were going to grab a sandwich before going but we found out that all of our local bakeries don't do sandwiches in the evening. It turned out to be a good thing as the girls weren't ready until 18:45 even without eating. With eating we would definitely have arrived for the intermission. We left at 18:45 and spent a little over an hour in mindboggingly frustrating traffic. With a combination of my trusty Tom Tom Go and a little bit of Parisian knowhow we were able to at least move forward and we arrived in front of the theatre at 20:00 on the dot. I circled around a few times and parked in the parking lot. I got out of the car, ran up 3 flights of stairs and desperately started looking for a public toilet. After running a couple of blocks, with my teeth swimming, I decided I'd go at the theatre. Desney and the kids were waiting in front of the theatre for me with a sandwich which I didn't have time to eat and a bottle of water. I (stupidly) just can't seem to remember to always leave the car with a bottle of water. We got in to the theatre and I found the toilet before getting to our seats... whew!

For Jessica and I the performance was wonderful. I found the set quite amazing and later learned that it was designed by the actor playing Christian. The costumes were all by Christian Lacroix and were (obviously) excellent. Our seats were wonderful as well. We were in the "Presidential box"... centre... one level up. The acting was above average. But in this type of huge audience situation one can really tell the difference between those with a properly trained voice and those without. One of the small bit parts, for example, was easily heard much more so than the actor playing Cyrano's confidente who I couldn't hear throughout. The "cadre" itself, of course, is always impressive. It's about as close as going to the Opera as I can think of. The walls, the statutes, the stairs... history and class all the way.

At the intermission I ate half of my sandwich out on the balcony overlooking a pretty amazing fountain. I'm sure that the "old" me would have finished the whole sandwich in less than 10 minutes. But the "new" me could only manage a half in the alloted 30 minutes and that required copious amounts of water to wash it all down.

Unfortunately Alexandra found the whole experience quite boring. As we all know Cyrano is a five-act play and can go on a bit. It finished just after midnight and Alex was definitely tired. She also had to get up for school the next morning. Traffic going home was wonderful and I think we got there in less than 20 minutes.

A wonderful night out....