Arts & Events

Théâtre de la Ville of Paris has staged creative productions here before--an impressive version of Ionesco's 'Rhinoceros' with something like virtual automata for the beasts, and more recently a fine version of a truly great play, Pirandello's 'Six Characters in Search of an Author's in 2014.

Now Cal Performances has brought them back this weekend with their production of Albert Camus' fourth play, 'State of Siege,' 1948 ('État de siège,' The original meaning closer to 'State of Emergency'), about a Spanish city--Cadiz--reduced to silence under authoritarian rule when a comet is seen overhead, and a citywide gag rule is declared concerning the omen, with a chorus parroting: "Nothing's happening, nothing will happen!"  

Camus' play, with affinities to his novel 'The Plague' ('La Peste'), is stylized in many respects, including some pantomime besides the chorus. Originally staged by the great mime and director Jean-Louis Barrault, it was criticized at the start of the Cold War for its Spanish setting instead of its parable of resistance being placed in Eastern Europe. But Camus proved adamant, citing the reasons to criticize Franco's Spain--and perhaps revived uncomfortable memories of the debacle of its Civil War, the failure of the first front against fascism. 

Théâtre de la Ville's excellent director, Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota, has said the play is "a distorted mirror of a nightmarish future in which a city is reduced to silence and submission to authority." 

He and his company are specialists in true spectacle; they'll theatrically transform Zellerbach's big stage into a genuine event. 

In French with English supertitles. 

(At 6:30 on Saturday, in association with the Department of French, there will be a roundtable of professors from both Berkeley and Davis at the Durham Studio Theater on campus, "From Totalitarianism to Rebellion," on the contemporary relevance of Camus' play. Free.) 

Saturday at 8, Sunday at 3 at Zellerbach Hall (U. C. campus off Bancroft Way west of Telegraph). $24-110. calperformances.org or 642-9988