Theatres Report Strong Demand for Shows That Help Tourists Understand Why Parisians Are Like That
PARIS — Paris’s June comedy calendar is excellent and includes the returning hit “How to Become a Parisian in One Hour” at the Theatre des Nouveautes, performed entirely in English and described as ideal for tourists discovering Paris and for Parisians ready for self-deprecation, which is a narrow Venn diagram with considerable overlap when the wine is good. The show covers the basic Parisian mysteries: why eye contact is complicated, what a bise involves and when it is expected, the relationship between a Parisian and their boulanger, and the specific face that Parisians make when someone asks them for directions in English and they decide how much effort to invest in the answer.
Also Running
Alexis Tramoni’s “Le Meilleur et le Pire” at the Petit Palais des Glaces runs through June 27. The Random Comedy Club at the Chouchou hotel performs every Sunday evening, where new comedians perform for an audience that has already had aperitif boards and cocktails and is in the optimal condition for comedy appreciation. Panayotis Pascot brings his stand-up to the Palais Garnier, which is either a temple of comedy or the Opera house depending on the evening, and David Castello-Lopes explores the theme of pleasure in “Delicious” at the European Theatre through early June.
The Self-Deprecation That Requires Confidence
French comedy about French people, and particularly Parisian comedy about Parisians, operates at an angle specific to cultures confident enough in their identity to find it funny. The best of it acknowledges the gap between how Parisians see themselves and how they are experienced by everyone else, a gap that has been producing comedy since at least Moliere and which shows no sign of narrowing, because the conditions that produce it are structural: a city that takes itself very seriously inhabiting a country that values wit above almost everything else, including taking itself seriously, which is the contradiction that comedy exists to negotiate and that Paris has been negotiating since the first philosopher made a joke at the king’s expense and was rewarded rather than imprisoned, which is when French comedy culture properly began.
For Paris comedy and theatre listings, see Le Parisien. For French cultural coverage, visit France 24. For Paris arts and entertainment, see Le Monde.
The comedy season in Paris serves a city whose relationship with humour is more complicated than it appears from the outside. France produced Moliere, Voltaire, and the entire tradition of satirical wit; it also produced a culture where public seriousness is a social expectation and where laughing too readily can be read as insufficient gravity. The comedy club circuit navigates this contradiction by operating in spaces where the expectation is explicitly suspended: you came to laugh, so laughing is permitted. The best French comedians use this suspension to say things that would be socially costly in other contexts, which is what comedy has always been for. Paris audiences, who are sophisticated about the form, reward when it is done well and punish when it is not, which keeps the standard high and the circuit competitive.
