Adam and Eve [Adam et Ève]

An elderly Jewish couple returns on Christmas Day to the café they went to when they were young to attend Communist meetings. Forty-five years later, the café has been redecorated, and the grandiose revolutionary ideals discussed within it seem to have vanished. It is clear from the conversation with the young waiter that those ideals are indefinable to the new generation, but neither Eve nor Adam feels discouraged. Their "return to the scene of the crime," as Adam jokingly calls it, is an opportunity to think about the Communist cause. It offered them a cover and a means of escape after World War II and the Holocaust. When the couple meets a woman of Jewish descent who was involved in persecutions, the atrocities of the war loom over them, but remain unspoken. Like them, she joined the Communist cause, and she now lives in Toronto under a false name.

Format: Full-length play

Cast Size: 4M/2F

Running Time: 2 hours

Character breakdown:

Adam: Michel Aumont
Eve: Geneviève Fontanel
Santa Claus: Louis Navarre
The manager: Roger Saouze
Betty: Janine Godinas
Marc: Louis Beyerr

Original or Prominent Production:
Directed by Gildas Bourdet; sets by Gildas Bourdet and Edouard Laug; costumes by Christine Rabot Pinson; with Michel Aumont, Louis Beyler, Geneviève Fontanel ... [et al.]. Performance: Paris (France): Théâtre national de Chaillot, 04-24-1997.

Original Language: French

Publisher:

1997. Actes Sud Papiers. Postface by Jean Caune.

Production Rights Holder:

Co-produced by Théâtre national de Chaillot and Théâtre de La Criée, Marseille, France.

Experience(s) Chronicled: Allegoric or Metaphoric Representations