LE BOEUF SUR LE TOIT (1980)

Ludus collaborated with The Haffner Orchestra to present their version of ‘Le Boeuf sur le Toit’. Based on an original production by Jean Cocteau, music by Darius Milhaud.This was a re-interpretation of the original ‘Spectacle Concert’ first presented at the Theatre de Comedie des Champs Elysees on Saturday, February 21, 1920.

The scene is an American Bar during Prohibition. The action of what Constant Lambert once called the ‘most amusing of the highbrow music-hall ballets’ is pleasantly devoid of all meaning …. A shooting, fighting, flirting,drinking, a rigged dice game, dancing and a cop loses his head and has to pay the bill.’Cocteau said, ‘Here I avoid subject and symbol. Nothing happens, or what does happen is so crude, so ridiculous, that it is as though nothing happens. Look for no double meaning… and I repeat: it is an American farce, written by a Parisian who has never been to America.’

The Cast

The Barman – Gary Powell

The Boxer – Christopher Thompson

The Billiard Player – Sian Williams

The Bookmaker – Gil Graystone

The Red Headed Lady – Lesley Hutchison

The Policeman – Suzanne Hoeltham

Set and props – Dusty Hall

Costumes – Ali Long

Masks – Juginder Lamba, Paul Cook

Research – Joan Ewert

The Haffner Orchestra was founded in 1976 and since then has grown in strength and numbers to a full symphony orchestra, rehearsing and performing inLancaster. The orchestra is made up of amateur and local professionals from across the north-west.