Dinner & The Double Bass

Photos of this entire event leave to desire. This one isn't great of JJ and our niece, but look at the blackboard menu. It's huge and complicated. Also, you can see a reflection of the restaurant, small but elegant, too. 

On the evening of Le St. Valentin we met our niece and nephew in the theatre district --a scroungy part of northwest Paris close to Pigalle--to dine and then attend a much talked-about one-man play, La Contrabasse (The Double Bass) afterward. As you might guess dinner on the town is just as important as any play and although the neighborhood was iffy the restaurants were quite nice. Obviously, the numerous theaters in the area, including the pitiful Theatre du Nord Ouest, provide nightly patrons.

Chefs usually limit the number of "places," as they do the number of servings for each dish. One will hear from the establishment's one-and-only waiter/waitress, "Je regrette, Madame/Monsieur, we are out of that." Or, "We have only one piece of Tarte aux Prunes left." Maybe, "We only have 2 servings of the duck remaining." This is a good thing because it means that this restaurant doesn't prepare industrial quantities, that it serves as if for a large family, and that the chef is demanding. 

It occurred to me during our stay this last time that most chefs of small restaurants generally work two long shifts a day, lunch and dinner. They buy provisions at the open market, not a supermarket. The menus reflect the seasonal produce and availability of specialty items. It's still much the same as it always has been with the added advantage of kitchens full of marvelous gadgets--many of which are French inventions, to make cooking easier and to improve textures & quality.  We diners converse with the waiter for our order, and he mediates with Le Chef. In this way we dine our way through about 1500 to 2000 calories of wines, breads, hors d'oevres, entrées, cheeses, and desserts. Most of us take an expresso so that we won't sleep during the show.

La Contrabasse was a suggestion from our Sister-in-Law who lives in Blois, sizable town in the Loire Valley. She listens to France Musique classical radio quite a lot, had heard talk of the play, & read some good reviews. The raves were not only about its unique content - the life and times of an orchestral contrabasse player, but also an outstanding performance by the solo actor, Clovis Cornillac. The thing that makes this play attract notice is that it is comic, requiring a good comic actor, but it also is the rather sad tale of his limited existence. As the actor yanked us between laughter and pity, we learned a lot. Aristotle would have been proud! Kudos to Patrick Suskine of Parfum fame, known to English readers as The Nose. This writer, described as having the nature of a hermit crab, came out just long enough to communicate with the Parisian producers. This strange play is a success, but I'm not sure how long it will run or if the house receipts will keep it going for long. After all, the subject is recondite. 

Getting into the hall with everyone else was an ordeal. While the Le Theâtre de Paris was more standard than Le Theâtre du Nord Ouest, it was nevertheless, close & stuffy with steep stairwells from street to vestibule, and from the vestibule into the hall. Patrons were allowed to check their heavy wraps, but alas there was only a lone front-of-house guy to take care of everything. We kept our coats and stuffed them in our narrow seats. The orchestra section was poorly raked & seats placed just so the heads lined up to obstruct view. My niece and I had giant nobs right in front of us, so that we spent the entire play dodging from left to right, yet still we managed to enjoy the play. 

Without ado, no music, no announcement (turn off your cell phones and don't take photos), the houselights barely subdued, & not even the traditional three loud knocks from backstage, the curtain opens on this slouchy guy ironing a white shirt stage left, and his large instrument propped on a chair downstage right. The set is a bare necessities man-cave with a closet containing only his black & whites for work, nothing anywhere attractive or nice.  I honestly wasn't sure the play had begun because the actor simply began addressing the audience in the most casual sort of way. I guess one should never forget that all the same this character is a fiddler! One wondered if the unique usher was also the stage manager, "Psst! Clovis! Let's get started. The crowd is a bit noisy tonight, but if you just get it rolling they'll shut up."

And shut up we did. Except for laughing, we were a rapt audience. For and hour and three quarters with no intermission, we listened as we learned some history of the instrument, its importance in ensemble playing, and at the same time its "lower status," when compared to some other instruments. We were privy to the life of a frustrated, low-paid at €1500 per month, kind of fonctionnaire (government servant). From the outset he showed us his fridge which was filled with only cold beer in pop-top cans. Beer obviously dulls his unhappiness. Our actor opened and swilled about 10 of these before the final curtain. 

This bass fiddler is not a happy man. Overworked & grossly underpaid, he can only pine away after the cute little first flutist who, of course, doesn't know he's alive. He must live in Paris close enough to the rehearsal and performance halls where rents are high. He had to have his apartment expensively soundproofed. Caught between all the requirements of présence et perfection, he doesn't even have time to practice. His routine, suffocating existence is that of a person who really never loved playing bass fiddle in the first place. He only just fell into this professional slot because of circumstances that he never controlled. 

You'll be saying, "This wasn't funny at all." But, you'd be wrong because comedy is, in fact, sadness masked with humor. It is funny to watch this ungraceful, sloppy, self-indulgent, moderately thick-set bass player, pouring out his heart to us, playing only one long,  tenuous, demonstrative note on his ominously present jumbo instrument. 

This single thin-toned, long note has no art, no movement, no enthusiasm, or expectations. Musical notes should never be static, they should "go" somewhere; and when this doesn't happen there is no art and no music. Should we come to understand that our bass fiddler is a representative of our monotone lives? Close to the play's end we are sure that he's not going to "work" tonight. He's quitting because he's so fed up. Yeah, right. He'll be right there onstage the next night basking in 20 minutes of unabated applause.