I have to admit, that while I enjoyed the experience all the way through, there were days when I was worried, or when I wrote it off as inferior to my experiences doing theatre in the U.S. with people just as serious about a career in the arts as I am.
The performance was about a week away and we were a mess. I began to worry. My main scene in the "spectacle", an extract from Moliere's Les Precieux Ridicules was fine, but not spectacule-ar. The other scenes ranged from ok to disastrous. But when push came to shove and after several long rehearsals the week of, when everyone was exhausted and stressed from finals and the impending end of the semester, we pulled through.
For the first time, all three of us in the Molière finally came together and acted with the same level of energy - and higher than before. It was a scene of seduction - the premise of the play is that a young genius writer/artist uses two young aristocratic ladies, who dream of holding a grand salon, in order to get ahead. In the scene, the writer recites an "impromptu" and the girls become completely wrapped around his...little finger. Without the right energy and the right level of exaggeration, the scene would fall flat.
But we did it! And the rest of the spectacle came together well.
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"Cela n'est pas de refus!" |
That night I had my first real experience at a discothèque - I have been out many times, but normally in bars or "boites de nuit" - nightclubs - which is slightly different. In Rennes, Bars close at 1, nightclubs at 3 and discothèques at 6 am... The CIREFE reserved the first half of the evening at the legendary "L'Espace", which then opened to the public at midnight. My host mom told me that L'Espace was and still is the gay discotheque - I can affirm that!
It was a blast to dance with my friends and celebrate the success of the spectacle, even if by the end of the night some of my closest friends were off dancing coupled up and I had long lost my french dance partner to the crowd - my fault, I told him I'd be right back. Think that is what girls tend to say when they want to get rid of someone... oh well. It was a good night, walked home with Stephanie since she lives in the same direction as me just a little further on from the centre-ville.
Saturday and Sunday were also evenings out - "une verre en ville" with Steph and Elsa, my scene partner. Emil, the guy we played opposite, also above, came too, but later. Sunday was a barbeque in the lovely Parc de Gayuelles.
Tuesday, after a hellish literature exam, the director of the theatre group, Pascal, invited us over for a potluck at his house. Really lovely man with a lovely house and an even lovelier family. It was great to be all together and to discuss the performance as well as politics, university life in other countries, and our futures. I talked with Pascal about my hopes of pursuing theatre - he was supportive. I wish I had thought to ask his background, I never did. With all of us, as is customary in France, he maintained the "vous" form of address, and while I have come to appreciate that as a form of respect, it is also distancing - interesting how connotations like that can be so complex with varied meanings and how just the nuance between "tu" et "vous" can determine a relationship.
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| What vagabonds |
Last night was yet another soirée, and while I knew I was doomed to make my sickness, which set in sunday night, last even longer, I felt I had to go out to say goodbye. It was not the best night in the world, and goodbyes were bittersweet. I had already said goodbye to Brinn, my only other close American friend her other than Stephanie, earlier that afternoon, and that was hard. Last night was goodbye - to everyone. I wanted to do it all at once, even if I am in Rennes a few more days.
I wasn't quite expecting that I would find saying goodbye so hard. Two weeks ago, I would have said that these people were just passing through my life. That may or may not be true - most of them I will never see again - some I will make an effort to keep in touch with. Still, they have shared a part of my life, a very critical part of my life, where I have grown and changed and been challenged, found myself a child and a woman all in the same moment, and I suppose that means something, and saying goodbye means saying goodbye to Rennes, to France, to this period of discovery and change. It is rather similar to the feelings I had after high school graduation, saying goodbye to my classmates, many of whom I didn't know well but who had been a presence in my life for many many years. I don't mean my closest friends, but all the faces who made up Pullman High class of 2009 - this feels a bit the same.
Of course, it was harder to say goodbye to certain people... There are those who have touched my life, who have been my best friends here, whether by fate or just by default, and I am lucky to have them.
Leaving sucks. But, gotta keep on dancing, like I did with my girl from Sweden:
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| Best dance partner/scene partner in all of France |
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