Les Chiens de Navarre, the most outrageous collective on the French-language theatre scene, are about to make their exhilarating NAC debut in a tumult of liberty and jubilant cynicism!

What’s love all about? What is sexual desire? What are the social masks that conceal our savage selves? These are a few of the questions the Chiens de Navarre tackle in Les armoires normandes (“the Norman wardrobes”). This hilarious show about the vagaries of love dissects relationships, shatters romantic clichés, and skewers the best and (especially) the worst of our emotional interactions. In a dizzying, fast-paced series of mordant sketches, love is put under the microscope, from the passion of the first date to the challenges of routine, by way of the irrationality of relationships and the disillusionment of life à deux. And it’s all done with the cynical humour that is the trademark of these off-leash Chiens.

“We investigate the endurance of a romantic relationship through its different stages,” explains the leader of the pack, director Jean‑Christophe Meurisse. “It’s like a fresco: first meeting, becoming a couple, marriage, kids, the eventual divorce, separation, loss of love. We examine the different rites of passage in a way that’s sometimes fierce, sometimes absurd, sometimes caustic.”

On a sand-covered stage adorned with a solitary palm tree, the eleven Chiens open the doors of their fascinating Armoires normandes … At once cynical, genial, childlike and clownish, the actors’ performance—a game of love and chance—propels the show along the slope of a regression that leaves the audience both delighted and bewildered by such impertinence. Scathing and utterly irreverent!

 

Director and stage manager: Jean‑Christophe Meurisse // With Caroline Binder, Solal Bouloudnine, Isabelle Catalan, Claire Delaporte, Céline Fuhrer, Robert Hatisi, Charlotte Laemmel, Manu Laskar, Thomas Scimeca, Maxence Tual and Jean‑Luc Vincent // Assistant director: Amélie Philippe / Artistic associate: Isabelle Catalan // Lighting and stage management: Stéphane Lebaleur / Sound: Isabelle Fuchs // Costumes: Élisabeth Cerqueira // Construction: François Gauthier‑Lafaye / Head stagehand: Flavien Renaudon // Produced by Le Grand Gardon Blanc and Les Chiens de Navarre

1 hour 45 minutes with no intermission

TICKETS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS

Adults $ 25 + / Students $ 20 +  /  Live rush $ 15

Satellite Box office
54 Elgin Street, Ottawa
Monday to Friday, 9 am to 9 pm
Saturday, 10 am to 9pm

The Box Office Kiosk
53 Elgin Street, Ottawa
Located at the reception desk in the NAC lobby

The Box Office Kiosk will open only on event days as of 2 hours prior to the first show start time until 15 minutes after the last show start time. The Kiosk is reserved fo last minute day of show transactions such as pick-ups and walk up purchases.

Ticketmaster: 1-888-991-2787

Groups of ten people and more
Discount of 15 to 20%
613 947-7000 x634 / grp@nac-cna.ca