Le Moche ・ Comédie-Française

This futuristic play questioning our profound relationship with conformism, at the crossroads of fantasy drama and social comedy, was written by major contemporary author – and dramaturg for Thomas Ostermeier and the Berlin Schaubühne – Marius von Mayenburg.

It tells the story of Lette, a brilliant engineer unable to understand why management decided to send his assistant to an important convention to present his latest achievement in his place. Finally, he finds out why: he is phenomenally ugly. His wife assures him of his inner beauty, but he is so astounded that he decides to get surgery to get a completely new face. Lette’s peers become insanely jealous of his fully artificial beauty, and constantly compare themselves to his new self. Soon, they all start undergoing the very same procedure: in the street, in the office, Lette is constantly faced with carbon copies of himself…
Echoing our society fuelled by social media, subjected to algorithms, and gradually governed by standards generated by artificial intelligence, this tale questions our current relationship with identity, norms, and relationships. Due to work obligations and unsettling personal events, the play’s naïve hero is inadvertently swept off in a world frantically obsessed with beauty and appearances. As a former member of our Academy, director Aurélien Hamard-Padis is used to regularly working with the Troupe. He tackles a challenging play which confuses our perception through situational liveliness and astonished characters – blurring the lines between beauty and ugliness, reason and insanity, and, in a hilarious fashion, between ourselves and others.

NEW PRODUCTION

WARNING FOR PHOTOSENSITIVE PERSONS
Strobe effects of about twenty seconds are used at two specific moments in the show.