Reviews

Zigmund Follies is a truly unclassifiable show. Even if it is like a puppet show, the video, the music and the text are of high standard.

– Dossier Pedagogique

As a collector of images, emotions and passions, Philippe Genty has a good sense of humor and despair.

– France Soir

This manipulator and magician of light, verb and meaning has abandoned his ostriches and his Pierrot, in order to let us see and hear a new facet of his art.

– L’Express

Zigmund Follies: A Storyteller in the Garden of Plants.

– le Parisien

We had the thought of taking over Zigmund Follies, the first show about the company, and which is the origin of all the others afterwards.

– Charente Libre

About Zigmund Follies

Zigmund Follies is a founding show for the Philipe Genty Company.

Written in 1983, updated and expanded in 2000, this show is an initiatory journey, both zany and biographical. It tells how the author, Philippe Genty, came close to psychological disintegration and how, by confronting his own inner fears and demons, by discovering the cause of his anxieties, he succeeded in becoming master and creator of his life.

The themes addressed in Zigmund Follies, such as the relationship with the father, mother, schizophrenia, paranoia, the multiplication of personalities, will go on to be treated in other shows, in more visual forms, involving dance movement, puppetry, acting, music, and magic.

The whole poetic, absurd and profound universe of Philippe Genty is condensed into this form which does not seem to age, so universal are its themes that their treatment is always imbued with humour and self-deprecation.

Philippe Genty's shows have travelled all over the world, each playing between 250 and 1000 times. His images are speaking to audiences of all ages and countries.

Credits

Artistic director: Philippe Genty

Assistant, choreographer, costume maker: Mary Underwood

Puppeteers: Eric de Sarria, Philippe Richard

Light creator: Yannick Delval

Video: Claire-Marie Leroux

Sound: Jean-François Lasalle

Light technician: Emmanuel Laborde,

Building: Philippe Genty, Mary Underwood, Sébastien Puech, Vincent Boisserolle

Chinese script translator: Wang Jing

About Philippe Genty

As a trained “plastician” artist, Philippe Genty undertook, from 1962 to 1966, with a grant and UNESCO's help, to produce a documentary film on puppet theatres around the world. In 1968, he founded the Compagnie Philippe Genty, which combines in its shows various types of puppets, theatre, dance, mime, shadow and light games, music and sound. An emblematic figure in the renewal of puppetry and visual theatre arts, Philippe Genty continues his exploration of a new visual language. Like a dream, multiple-direction images follow one another without linear narration or psychology. The scene is then the territory of the unconscious, which testifies to the conflicts of the human being before himself. Genty and his visual shows have been awarded several prizes around the world, and they have come to China several times.

About Compagnie Philippe Genty

The Compagnie Philippe Genty was created, in 1968, by Philippe Genty himself and his wife, Mary Underwood.

Under the impulsion of its creators, the Compagnie has developed several visual productions shown all over the world, first in cabarets (1970s), then in theaters and festivals (1970-2019).

Internationally famous and recognized in many countries—in Russia and Eastern European countries, New Zealand, Australia, India, Japan, Argentina, South Africa, Europe and the U.S., Philippe Genty started with visual shows in which the main subject where puppets.

Probably under the influence of his wife, but also because of his need to develop his own writing, the Compagnie has shifted towards dance and movement, mixing acting, magic effects, scenography and music. Even if the latest shows have fewer puppets than the first ones did, we can feel the puppeteer spirit in these last shows.

It is difficult to categorize the Philippe Genty’s shows: they are multi-disciplinary.

They have won several prizes in dance, puppets, and theatre. The Company Philippe Genty performed Forget Me Not in Beijing, China in November 2014.

Specifically important in Philippe Genty’s work are the images in the dramaturgical writing, based on personal memories or dreams.

Everyone can see a Philippe Genty’s show because it speaks to everyone, whatever their culture or age. There is no political message, beyond hope and faith in the capacity of the human being to overcome his own, unconscious conflicts.