War is rumbling between Francis I and Charles V… While some dream of making a name for themselves, others see it above all as a way to make a fortune, and what could be more lucrative than arms trafficking…
The story
Master Gerphanhon, a draper by trade and a more than honourable burgher, amasses a great quantity of coins because, in addition to his front business, he secretly engages in arms trafficking that supplies the combatants on both sides. His valet, Cocobé, a penniless and unlucky peasant, dreams for his part of enlisting in the armies to make his fortune and thereby win Loretta, the cloth merchant’s nimble and quick-witted maidservant. A few days before the famous battle, in the good town of Puy Sainte Marie, far from the clamour of the battlefields, a great quantity of weapons of every kind, which will find their use in the fighting, is bought and bitterly haggled over…
1515 Marignan… the battle! tells, in a humorous and slightly bawdy way, the good fortunes and misfortunes of particularly colourful characters. This little satirical fable about the “side effects” of war takes its form from the inspiration of Rabelais, Clément Janequin and the famous Commedia dell’Arte.
A tragicomic show, it plays with a humour that is at times a touch bawdy (in the spirit of the age!) and with the wit that Master François Rabelais would not disown. It belongs to the pure tradition of the popular theatre of the Renaissance, with a style based on the gestures and masks of the Commedia dell’Arte.
WRITING AND DIRECTION
Jean Louis ROQUEPLAN
COSTUMES
Pauline Marion
Cast
Lionel Alés
Marie Aubert
Stéphane Courtial
Franck Dafour
Véronique Dumoulin
Christophe Huet
Vanina Ferreyra
Christophe Rousseau
CO-PRODUCTION
THÉÂTRE DE L’ALAUDA – Association ROI DE L’OISEAU