Sunday, July 10, 2011

La Resistance: Herding Lions II - The Man Behind the Masks

Greetings, and a very belated happy June 20th!

June 20th is the birthday of our current episode's subject: Jean Moulin. As a long-standing Moulin buff I could not expose you to the war-time heroics of this gentleman's life without also throwing light on all that came before.

In this episode, we recall Max Jacob fondly, Andre Malroux infrequently, Marcel Bernard thankfully, and Henri Frenay as little as possible. Most importantly, we get behind the hagiography to balance the usual (albeit accurate) story of heroic dying with a tale of courageous living.

Joking aside, I once wrote a bio of this person on a personal blog many years back. One reader commented that hearing about his life was like seeing a table filled with pictures. If we're at all lucky, you will hopefully walk away with a similar impression.

"Les Alchimistes," the play mentioned in this episode, is running from July 25th to August 14th, 2011, at Theatre Nord-Ouest in Paris. I'll be there from the 25th to the 31st, if anyone would like to say hello. More info can be found at www.theatredunordouest.com.

Without further ado, the video mentioned in this episode: An example of the fanatical, fantastical things fans of Jean Moulin can sometimes get up to. (Warning: The default volume is set quite high.)

Enjoy and, as always, vive la Resistance!


Jean Moulin contre les Nazi Remix 2010 by padrito

Monday, March 21, 2011

Personal Note

Bonjour TLM,

A brief personal message, if I may: In one of my other jobs I am a playwright and for the last five years a play I wrote about Jean Moulin and Jeanne Darc has slowly been making its way in the anglophone theatre community. It has had productions, near misses, and now, thanks to the excellent efforts of Claire Duvivier, is has a French translation.

Malheureusement, nothing in my years in the anglophone theatre world have prepared me for the singular insularity of the French theatre community. Theatre companies who perform works in English nearly always have submission info on their websites.

Theatre companies in France do not.

While this play has always found support wherever it has gone, there appears to be no way an outsider such as myself can place it before anyone in the French theatre community. In my research so far, this world may as well be a labyrinth wrapped in an M.C. Escher painting.

The title of this post links to a downloadable PDF file of the play, Les Alchimistes, in the hopes that if you are the sort of person who visits a Resistance blog such as this, then you may also be the sort who would appreciate a good play about Jean Moulin and Jeanne Darc. If so, you're the person I wrote it for. Feel free to download and enjoy.

There may also be someone among us who knows what the next appropriate steps would be for an outsider like myself to take, or of someone in the theatre community who would be interested in the material.

Either way, the years of work placed into the project by myself and others should not waste away in my laptop. It should be accessible by the people who may enjoy it. As followers of a Resistance blog and podcast, I suspect this may apply to some of you.

For those of you who for whom this is not a topic of interest, je vous présente mes excuses pour vous avoir dérangé. Part two of the Jean Moulin podcasts should be up within a month, and after that we'll be heading to Denmark to explore some of the most extraordinary escape efforts of the war.

Until then, vive la Resistance.

Sincerely,
Kensington

Monday, January 10, 2011

C'est Ma Faute !

My bad!

Upon listening to the last two podcasts in a row, I realized the sound quality on the Jean Moulin ep was worse than that of the Henri Frenay ep. For a Moulinology buff like myself, that's just not right.

Before doing the second of the our two part intro to all things Moulin Studies, I've redone part one. The link attached to this post will take you to it, and the previous post's link has been updated.

Hopefully, this will be the last time this particular technology problem will occur, and we'll be able to move on to the fertile fields of all new technology problems in the future.