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UN BATTEMENT D’ELLES – (« A Beat of Her Own”)

📅 Dateseptembre 2020
The show has finished — thank you to everyone who came along!

The show

Created for the 2019–2020 season finale, this two-act production was set to take audiences to the island of Silla, where political rivalries, an airport development project, ferry crossings and unfinished love stories intertwined. Sadly, it was never performed for the public due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the cancellation of its scheduled performances. In the first act, the two sides of the island of Silla are governed by two rival sisters: Patricia Montal, the elected representative of the South Shore, and Kate Nensel, the newly elected representative of the North Shore. They meet to negotiate the construction of an airport designed to open the island up to the mainland. Joining them around the table are Alice Brume, a representative from the French Ministry of Transport, Frédéric Miste, a wealthy investor with a talent for seduction, and Jean-Eudes Delaire, an aviation expert who has mistakenly brought along his wife, Christelle. Amid misunderstandings, phobias, family quarrels, personal ambitions and political interests, the meeting quickly spirals out of control. When Kate discovers that the only suitable site for the airport is on the South Shore, she categorically refuses the project. Behind her opposition lies a far more personal wound: Françoise, the woman she loved, left the island several years earlier to settle on the mainland. Unable to come to terms with this abandonment, Kate decides that if she cannot control the island's new means of communication, no one will. She cancels the project, closes the harbour and cuts the island off from the rest of the world. The second act takes place in the bar of the ferry terminal serving Silla. Sam and Suzi struggle to keep the bar running between whisky bottles and seagull attacks, while Chantal welcomes passengers under the authority of Stéphane Boutout, the ferry company's particularly chauvinistic manager. Captain Ravière prepares to set sail, while Appolline desperately waits for a husband who seems in no hurry to arrive. The sudden announcement that the island is being closed turns everyone's day upside down: all ferry services are cancelled, and the airport project is abandoned for good. Among the regulars at the bar is Françoise herself, who reveals that she once loved Kate before fear drove her to leave Silla on 3 April 2017. Ever since, she has returned to the harbour every day, never finding the courage to board the ferry again. An old legend tells of a princess abandoned by a mermaid, whose heart became as hard as stone. Gradually, the characters realise that the tale mirrors the story of Kate and Françoise. Hoping to restore contact with the island, they decide to send Kate the notebook in which Françoise has written all the words of love she never dared to tell her. With neither telephones nor boats available, they entrust the notebook to a seagull equipped with a compass. Against all expectations, the message reaches its destination. The harbour reopens, the ferries are able to sail once more, and Françoise is finally given a second chance to return to the island, confront her past and reunite with Kate. An ensemble comedy blending politics, love, travel, humour and poetry, in which every character finds themselves at a crossroads, faced with the choice of remaining safely on the shore or daring to embark on a new beginning.