Le Petit Théâtre de l'Absolu was a puppet theatre troupe found in Montreal, Quebec, active from 2001 until 2005. The theatre's work consisted of toy-theatre shows based on revolutionary history, performed in Canada, the U.S., France, and Spain.
Le Petit Theatre de l’Absolu's co-founders include Gabriel Levine and Scott Levine Gilmore, both of whom were members of Black Ox Orkestar, a quarter that reinterpreted Yiddish / European Jewish folk music. Gabriel Levine was also a member of Sackville, a group that explored folk, rock and avantgarde music in a pop context. Levine's work broadly departs from a recontextualization of traditional and vernacular forms of performance, reinventing and reimagining performance genres articulated via contemporary social concerns. Levine had previously worked in Vermont for the Bread and Puppet Theatre in the late 1990s, informing the use of puppetry that defined the work of Le Petit Theatre de l’Absolu.
Early work includes Paris in the 19th Century Part 3: Demolition Polka and Part 4: La Commune. In 2001, Le Petit Theatre de L'Absolu performed at the Chicago Cultural Center as part of Puppetropolis, a two-week, city-sponsored festival of puppet theater. Chicago Tribune chief critic Richard Christiansen described the group as "a quartet from Montreal who presented on a puppet stage a politically charged history of the Paris Commune of 1870-71."[1]
In the autumn of 2003, the theatre toured their children’s show, The Rooster and the King, through the occupied Palestinian territories (East Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Nablus, Qalqilya), West Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv, performing in schools, community centres, and refugee camps. This tour included a performance at the Palestinian National Theatre in Jerusalem as part of the 13th international Puppet Festival, which took place September 6 to 13, 2005, where The Rooster and the King was well-received.[2] Levine described the work as "an anarchic hand-puppet show for children...which we brought to East Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugee camps of the occupied West Bank." The alt.theatre journal described their work at the time as "activist puppet theatre ... using history to rekindle revolutionary flames and tackle contemporary social issues."[3]
Le Petit Theatre de l’Absolu performed as part of the 7th Toy Theatre Festival, held at St Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, New York, June 10-June 19, 2005. Steve Abrams writes that they performed "Birds of the Coming Storm, directed by Hermine Ortega, [which] offered stories of seven anarchist demonstrators in 19th-century Chicago who were executed for protesting factory working conditions."[4] Birds of the Coming Storm dealt with the events of Chicago's Haymarket Riot.
References
- ^ Christiansen, Richard (19 June 2001). "Puppets on parade Hugo & Ines dazzle crowd with innovative imagery". Chicago Tribune. p. 5.2. Retrieved 6 February 2022.
- ^ Al Muhtadi, Rania (2009). UN ESCENARIO SIN TERRITORIO. TEATRO Y SOCIEDAD EN PALESTINA. [A SCENARIO WITHOUT TERRITORY. THEATER AND SOCIETY IN PALESTINE.] (in Spanish). València, Spain: Universitat de València. p. 158.
- ^ Tembeck, Tamar (2003). "Bridging Art with Activism: In Conversation with Gabriel Levine of Le Petit Théâtre de l'Absolu". alt.theatre: Cultural Diversity and the Stage. 2.4: 6–7.
- ^ Abrams, Steve (2005-07-01). "On Stage: Seventh Toy Theatre Festival". The Puppetry Journal. Vol.56 (4): 17.
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External Links
Gabriel Levine, "Performance".