Froth on the Daydream

The eel came out of the tap: it was provoked by the pineapple. But the chef was quicker. Now there is eel pâté for dinner. Colin is 22 years old, an engaging creature in possession of a fortune that keeps him in the carefree lifestyle of a dandy. Just like every Monday, he has invited his friend Chic, a builder who earns much less than his workers. They love chatting, live for beauty and the moment and long for existential experience. Chic has just fallen in love with Alise, and Colin meets Chloé. She is the love of his life. However, a water lily is growing inexorably inside Chloé’s lung, which appears to be incurable. And Chic gradually becomes obsessed with the philosopher Jean-Sol Partre, driving Alise to despair, while the world around the two couples threatens to vanish in darkness and the final bars of Duke Ellington’s ‘Chloe’ drift over from a distance.

Boris Vian’s surrealist stories – he was also an actor and jazz trumpeter – make him one of the leading writers of post-war French literature. »There are only two things: love and music,« Vian wrote in 1946 in the foreword to »L’Écume des jours«. »Froth on the Daydream« is a declaration of love to life in all its transience. Together with the video artist and scenographer Stefano Di Buduo, director Bernadette Sonnenbichler will bring Vian’s poetic imagery to the stage.