Le Cid – le boring

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I went with the IAU class to Marseille to see the play ‘le Cid”. My hostmom told me it was a classic in France and that she had seen the play on tv one time (she watches sooo much tv..I’m not shocked!). So I thought that it would be nice to see a play that was really traditional and classic French for a nice theatre experience.

But……I did not really appreciate it. The play was just sooo overdramatic!! The girl was fainting all the time and the style was so stiff. They would not look at each other and go on these huge monologues and do something like hold out their one hand for 5 minutes. And all the other background characters stood still. No one stands still (minus a stiff outstretched hand) when they are talking about their unrequited love or their dead father!! Soooo stiff and overdramatic. The girl fainted so much she should have just stayed on the floor!!
To make the night more entertaining I tuned out the French (which wasn’t hard since it was all long monologues filled with big old-fashioned words). In place of the French I put a dialogue about what to eat for dinner. That is how boring it was! I had them fighting over KFC/Poppey’s/dad’s own recipe for a fried chicken dinner!! I was soo bored. The best part of the play was the fact that the King had on this long cape thing behind him and he had a sword. When he put his hand on his sword it stuck out in the back, but it was still covered by his cape..so it stuck out and swooshed under his cape when he moved—it looked like a tail! Everytime he moved and it was like that we all laughed really hard. But there were French people behind us who laughed too so that helped..it made me feel like I wasn’t the only one being an inappropriate young person at a stuffy play.

And at the end they bowed about 840932 times! Gah! It was so annoying. But again, the French people behind us were ‘uggh’ing and ‘pas encore!”ing, so it definitely helped. Even if the story was old and stuffy French stuff, at least not all of the people are! :D

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