The True Nature of Things: Les Sages Fous

“Everything we do seems to be kind of the beautiful side of the ugly, the funny of the sad, the tragic of the comic. We’re really interested in the dichotomies, the paradoxes of this world.”

This is how South Miller describes her work.

I would add to that - the dream of the nightmare, or the nightmare of the dream.

But more of that later.

South Miller, her husband Jacob Brindamour, and Sylvain Longpre are the creative triumvirate of Les Sages Fous in Trois-Rivières, Canada. They propose “a grotesque and poetic theater where image and gesture prevail on the word.” There is no good translation of their theatre’s name. You might say “Wise Fools.” Or “Foolish Sages.” All translations are insufficient. But what is in there is the sense of paradox, which runs through everything they do.

South explains the creative relationship: “I am artistic director, Jacob is general director and Sylvain is technical director. But in reality we are the three creators of all of our shows. I make the puppets, Sylvain makes the sets and Jacob is the main ‘tester’ of all of the objects (alias the one who breaks stuff). Sylvain participates in all of the movement exploration with the puppets and objects that create the shows. And he is something of a genius in the experimental rehearsal space.”

I met South many years ago when she was a young actor in a play that I had written. We needed a large puppet in that show, and she said, “I can help make that puppet.” I did not know this at the time, but that was like Georgia O'Keeffe saying, “I think I can paint something.”

South Miller (right) and baby ostrich in *Parade Issimo* / Singapore arts festival 2005

South was torn between pursuing art and pursuing theatre. Although from Canada, she spent four years in the US right after high school and studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse.

She had been drawn to non-mainstream theatre while in NY. She hung out with the Blue Men, worked with Bread and Puppet, and befriended a puppeteer who performed with Julie Taymor.

But there was a lot of pressure to fit in to the mold of a New York actress. She got an agent, she made the audition rounds, but when she didn’t land a role on a hit sitcom that she was up for, she felt like a burden had been lifted. “It was a huge relief. I was on fire with the sense that I could finally do what I wanted.”

She moved back to Montreal, but not speaking French at the time, she started doing performances which did not require speaking. She soon met her future husband and artistic partner Jacob, and five months later they founded Les Sages Fous.

Jacob Brindamour comes from a theatre family which stretches back generations, and he spent a lot of energy trying not to follow in his family’s footsteps. But when he met South, he succumbed – both romantically and theatrically.

They had written a children’s book and were asked to create a puppet show around the book. So they were traveling down the road to children’s puppetry.

“We kind of figured without question that we were going to be working on children’s theatre, because we kind of put ourselves in a box,” South said.

Then a theatre festival in Belgium rattled their world.

“We saw this show by a puppet company from the Netherlands, which really changed our life because it was a show for adults. It was very visceral, I was moved, and it was like ‘Agh!’ I had this huge epiphany.”

It was as if she had been hit by a lightning bolt.

“I get it! We can do whatever we want! We can do whatever we want! It doesn’t matter if it takes five years to make a show. We’re just going to make the show that we want to make - and then we’ll figure out after that, way after that, who the show is destined for.”

Show first, audience later.

“We gave ourselves an amazing amount of liberty and mostly because we saw what was possible through these European companies.”

Some of the cast of their shows, relaxing in their studio.

She had envisioned a piece called Cirque Orphelin, The Orphan Circus. But it would take ten years for that to happen.

Along the way they created a theatre which has played From Portugal to Finland, from Norway to Romania; in German castles, barns in Normandy, obscure villages in the Sardinian mountains, disused factories in Holland, in Serbian theaters half-destroyed by war, and above the Arctic Circle. All in all, they have participated in over 200 international festivals in 28 countries on 4 continents.

“We develop a specific dramaturgy for unconventional spaces, South says. “We rework, re-evaluate and transform our shows. We seek a direct dialogue with the public, which is an essential actor in the metamorphosis of our creations. We work from our subconscious and not from our heads, but the result is no less devoid of meaning. When we start a project, we’re not starting from a text. Or a plan. Or a storyboard. We’re starting from a kind of environment.”

Like the obscure alley of The Orphan Circus.

In the dark of the night, corrugated rusted metal walls of gold, brown and copper surround a collection of junk: old cans and boxes, an ancient radio and general discarded refuse.

The Birdman of *The Orphan Circus*. Olivia Faye Lathuillière (left) and Jacob Brindamour (right)

Two low-life types, a man and a woman enter, both dressed in black. They move through the piece like bumbling gangsters from a 1950s French farce. (If there even is such a thing.) The are going to show you The Orphan Circus.

One by one they introduce the strange humanoid characters who will perform for you - some willingly and some reluctantly. The sound design vacillates between a sinister ambient horror movie, and a kind of thick, plaintive, Miles Davis-y jazz.

It is indeed a circus - a mysterious, affectionate freak show, where, if the audience is quiet enough, the bizarre denizens of this world might just come out and show themselves. Watching it, I was reminded of David Lynch - drawing a curtain to reveal the surreal, the strange, the unexplained. It was spellbinding.

The piece ends with the “impossible” love story of a mermaid who can only live in water and the bird man, who can only live in the air. The two lovers end up together after the enactment of a Frankenstein-like solution to their problem. But only after one of them performs an erotic pole dance on the antenna of an old radio.

The mysterious impressario, Monsieur P.T. Issimo of *The Orphan Circus.*

What does it all mean?

Who’s to say? Better yet, why would you want to know? The riddles of Les Sages Fous eternally manifest their particular charisma, electricity and magnetism.

I am reminded of one of my favorite artist’s quotes. David Lynch was asked if he wanted to explain Eraserhead and he said, “No.”

The Orphan Circus has been in the official selection of over 60 international theaters, and theater festivals in 16 countries. And has won prizes for “best show” in three huge international festivals.

South says that everything they make is unique to the three of them, and talks about the phrase that animates what they do, like a mantra. “We call it in French, ‘La vraie nature des choses’ - the true nature of things.”

That sounds right. Watching a piece by Les Sages Fous is indeed to see the world as they see it. To see the true nature of things.

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Learn more about their work here.