Re-entry
27 – 31 October 2025
Monday 27 October
Flew back to Paris via Amsterdam. On the flight, I watched Lee Chang-dong’s Burning (2018), a Korean adaptation of a short story by Haruki Murakami. A little slow-moving at first, yet ultimately rewarding for its sustained intensity and the powerful final climax, subtly foreshadowed mid-film by an unexpected Miles Davis interlude. For some reason, the heroine, Shin Hae-mi, struck me as a distant cousin of Sally Bowles, with her languid indolence and idle philosophising.
Wednesday 29 October
Paris – The Comédie-Française revived one of Molière’s lesser-performed comedies, Le Mariage forcé (1664), at its secondary base, Le Vieux-Colombier. Director Louis Arene’s deliberately “unsubtle” staging leaned heavily on what’s already obvious in the text (male/female, inside/outside, light/dark) rather than uncovering deeper dramatic tensions. Still, the inventive visual design proved engaging, and the cast’s unwavering commitment won me over.
Thursday 30 October
Paris – If ever there were any doubt that Tchaikovsky helped usher classical music into the 20th century, the cleverly designed concert I attended at the Philharmonie de Paris offered persuasive evidence. Violinist Randall Goosby joined the Orchestre national de France under musical director Christian Măcelaru in a spellbinding rendition of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto (1881), which brilliantly illustrated the composer’s genius for melodic invention and orchestral colour, particularly striking in the woodwinds.
The second part gleefully re-introduced Elsa Barraine’s Symphony No. 2 (1938), subtitled Voina (War in Russian), a work mysteriously absent from the repertoire despite its rhythmic effervescence and ravishing orchestral colours. Two hallmarks of 20th-century French music that Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé epitomises — the orchestra’s confident yet emotionally layered performance of Suite No. 2 brought the evening to a felicitous close.
Friday 31 October
Paris – I was lucky to attend the first-ever performance of Dear Evan Hansen in Washington in July 2015 and have since admired its craft and modern-day relevance — it is, after all, one of the few successful original (i.e. not based on previous material) musicals of the contemporary era, up there in the same league as its “cousin” Next to Normal… or, more recently, the superb Maybe Happy Ending.
I was very impressed by the French-language production presented (as Cher Evan Hansen) at the Théâtre de la Madeleine, performed without an interval — a choice that heightened the already considerable emotional punch of the piece with this tight, fast-paced format greatly enhanced by an imaginative and vivid visual design… and of course its solid cast led by the amazing Antoine Le Provost.
The adaptation into French scored markedly above the usual Parisian standard (good prosody at last!) and the use of hairline mics rather than the atrocious jawline mics increased the show’s theatricality. Pasek and Paul’s names even made cameo appearances in the French text as offstage characters — Pasek as the principal (originally Mr. Howard) and Paul as the Murphys’ neighbours (replacing the Harrises). If Steven Levenson’s name similarly sneaked in, I missed it.
And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.