So begin the adventures of the “little plankton” – as her grandmother nicknames her – who falls in love with a stranger and is daring enough to accept the pact offered to her by the sea witch: beautiful agile legs in exchange for her voice, but never to see her own kind again and, if the prince should marry another, she will turn into foam.

Géraldine Martineau adapts Andersen’s tale into blank verse set to the alexandrine meter, and imagines a musical forest of coral. The journey of emancipation undertaken by the mermaid, whose dancing enchants humans and who experiences the first stirrings of love, the fear of adults and the violence of the world, is an ode to difference. It asks us to think about what parts of ourselves we are capable of transforming to please others. Géraldine Martineau emphasises the poetic aspect of the story over the punitive moral of the tale. She tells us that by becoming the Daughter of the Air, the mermaid acquires “a nature full of natural goodness, perhaps closer to her own, and can thus continue her discovery of the world and the elements.”

Spectacle créé le 15 novembre 2018 en coréalisation avec le Festival d’Automne à Paris et avec
la participation artistique du Jeune Théâtre National
Tout public à partir de 7 ans

FROM THE BEGINNING, the literary genre of the fairy tale contains both dreamlike and moral characters that appeal to children as much as to adults, who also perceive their subversive dimension. It is therefore not surprising that twenty-first century directors have sought to take a new look at this genre, proposing inventive reinterpretations for all audiences

The magical tale, a discreet presence in the Repertoire

Fairy tales comprise a fabulous repertoire from which the theatre has often borrowed, starting from the seventeenth century. The audiences of the time were fond of so-called machine plays and the array of wonderful effects that went with them. In the eighteenth century, these plays remained as popular as ever and adaptations of Charles Perrault’s tales flourished on stages, offering spectacular live scenery changes. His tales became such a reference that Beaumarchais, in a one-act play entitled The Seven League Boots –performed at the Salle Richelieu in 1932 as a non-Repertoire piece, during the celebration of the bicentenary of the author’s birth– has the character of Gilles address the audience as follows: “It is here that we see [...] those famous boots [....] composed by the celebrated Mr Perrault”.

While the magical world of fairy tales was a staple of fairground and boulevard theatres, the Comédie-Française remained more on the fringes of the trend. As a result, the genre’s presence in the Repertoire remained discreet. Some plays with suggestive titles were in fact quite far removed from children’s literature, such as La Coupe enchantée (The Enchanted Cup) by Jean de La Fontaine and Champmeslé (1688, based on two tales by La Fontaine, Les Oies de Frère Philippe (Brother Philip’s Geese) and La Coupe enchantée, themselves inspired by Boccaccio and L'Arioste), Le Petit Chaperon rouge (Little Red Riding Hood) by Félix Gandera and Claude Gevel (1919) and Poudre d’or (Golden Powder) by René Trintzius and Amédée Valentin (1928). On the other hand, there were works with less evocative titles that clearly drew on fairy-tale imagination. For instance, fairy characters were introduced into L’Oracle by Germain-François Poullain de Saint-Foix (1740), Les Fées (The Fairies) by Dancourt (1699), L’Amour et les fées (Love and the Fairies) by the Cardinal de Bernis (1746) or Arlequin poli par l’amour (Harlequin Refined by Love) by Marivaux (1720); a talisman appeared Il était une bergère (Once There Was a Shepherdess) by André Rivoire (1905) and a genie in Amour pour amour (Love for Love’s Sake) by Pierre-Claude Nivelle de La Chaussée (1742).

The philosophical and moral tale

Although the magical tale was the genre most often represented throughout the eighteenth century in adaptations for stages outside the Comédie\-Française, towards the end of the century the philosophical and moral tale became a new source of inspiration, reflecting political, cultural or social issues. For instance, Rochon de Chabannes drew the subject matter for his play _Heureusement_ _\(Fortunately\)_ –premiered by the Comédiens\-Français in 1762– from two _Moral Tales_ by Marmontel, who was credited with fathering this genre, which gradual freed itself from its fantastical origins. Much more recently, in 2012, at the Studio\-Théâtre, Emmanuel Daumas staged a lively adaptation of Voltaire’s [_Candide_](\[event\_580\]), which he described as “a mischievous and pernicious work” that tries to see “how far it can push the limits of our acceptance”. As a close relative to the fairy tale, the fable has also found its way into the Comédie\-Française’s Repertoire, in particular through the works of Jean de La Fontaine. His animal fables were the subject of literary evenings in 1975 and 1986, toured the United States in 1996 under the direction of Michel Favory, and [in 2004](\[event\_843\]) were orchestrated by director and visual artist Robert Wilson on the stage of the Salle Richelieu.

The fairy tale and shows for family audiences over the past ten years

With Le Loup (The Wolf), based on Marcel Aymé’s Contes du chat perché (directed by Véronique Vella) in 2009, the Comédie-Française revived this interest in the staging of fairy tales –more specifically for a young audience– and gave it a “new form of oral expression”. Over the following seasons, several adaptations of Andersen’s tales offered a range of approaches to the challenge of staging fairy tales: The Emperor’s New Clothes (directed by Jacques Allaire, 2010), The Three Little Pigs (directed by Thomas Quillardet, 2012), The Princess and the Pea (directed and adapted by Édouard Signolet, 2013), and The Little Matchstick Girl (adapted by Amrita David and Olivier Meyrou, 2014). In 2016, Véronique Vella staged another tale by Marcel Aymé, Le Cerf et le chien (The Stag and the Dog), continuing her reflection on the close bonds between animality and humanity. In these various stagings, all presented at the Studio-Théâtre, the handling of the narrative and the metaphysical dimension of the tale, making use of speech but also sound and image, stimulated the childish imagination while bringing to life the political, poetic and sometimes challenging dimensions of the works for audiences of all ages.

- Visual: _The Enchanted Cup_ by Jean de La Fontaine and Champmeslé, 1913, with Lafon, Jules Truffier, Yvonne Lifraud, Berthe Bovy and Béatrix Dussane – photo. A. Bert, coll. CF

Avec Le Loup, d’après les Contes du chat perché de Marcel Aymé (mise en scène Véronique Vella), en 2009, la Comédie-Française renoue avec cet intérêt des arts de la scène pour le conte – plus spécifiquement à destination d’un jeune public – et lui donne « une nouvelle forme d’oralité ». Au cours des saisons suivantes plusieurs adaptations de contes d’Andersen posent toujours la question de leur adaptation : Les Habits neufs de l’empereur (mise en scène Jacques Allaire, 2010), Les Trois Petits Cochons (mise en scène Thomas Quillardet, 2012), La Princesse au petit pois (mise en scène et adaptation Édouard Signolet, 2013), La Petite Fille aux allumettes (adaptation d’Amrita David et Olivier Meyrou, 2014). En 2016, Véronique Vella prolonge avec un autre conte de Marcel Aymé, Le Cerf et le chien, son intérêt pour la porosité entre animalité et humanité. Dans ces différentes propositions, toutes présentées au Studio-Théâtre, la prise en charge de la narration et de la dimension métaphysique du conte – en passant par la parole mais aussi par le son et l’image – nourrit l’imaginaire enfantin tout en restituant au spectateur de tout âge les dimensions politique, poétique et parfois contestataire.

• Visuel : La Coupe enchantée de Jean de La Fontaine et Champmeslé, 1913, avec Lafon, Jules Truffier, Yvonne Lifraud, Berthe Bovy, Béatrix Dussane – photo. A. Bert, coll. CF

Adaptation, directed by: Géraldine Martineau
Scenography: Salma Bordes
Costumes: Laurianne Scimemi Del Francia
Lights: Laurence Magnée
Original music: Simon Dalmais
Sounds: François Vatin
Choregraphy: Sonia Duchesne
Artistic collaboration : Sylvain Dieuaide

Voices of the Air Girls: Françoise Gillard, Anna Cervinka
Sung voice: Judith Chemla