Kids And Teens In Lafitte

Like every summer, Lafitte is packed with children and teenagers between the ages of 6 and 17... They enjoy many activities, such as playing with toys (one of which seems to Benjy...), and are served such desserts as delicious, thin homemade crêpes with sugar or jam...

They are also busy rehearsing a play; it's now a Lafitte tradition to produce a play in the summer. Directed by a couple of experienced adults, who often have a professional background in the theater, the little ones and the big ones rehearse for a few weeks before presenting two performances for friends and relatives who come from all over the region or from Paris to applaud them.
Last year, it was Shakespeare's magical and exquisite Midsummernight's dream, while this year it's The Revizor, a hilarious work by Gogol set in provincial Russia.

Bunraku

I realized that on this blog, my fascination for Russia and Iran has overshadowed another culture I am in love with, Japan's...
When I was living in Hong-Kong as a teenager, my mum traveled to Japan and brought back in her luggage many Japanese treasures; even the simplest things were exquisite, and even the most precious items, such as lacquer trays, were simple yet refined. She also brought back many Japanese novels, and I delved with delight into the works of of Kawabata, Kenzaburo Oe, Kobo Abe (a genius!), Ibuse, Inue, Soseki Natsume, Tanizaki and more. Years later, when I was 21, I spent a summer in Japan that I remember as a dazzling and intense experience.
Last week an article in The New Yorker made me want to read more about Bunraku - an ancient type of puppetry.
I got this book by the great Japanese scholar Donald Keene...

New to Japanese literature? Start with a novel with Kawabata, before graduating to Tanizaki's weighty Makioka Sisters, preferably in the translation by Edward G. Seidensticker.
Another wonderful way to delve into Japanese history and culture is Kimono: Fashioning Culture, by Liza Crihfield Dalby.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

At Lafitte this summer, the many children are rehearsing Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (in French), which will be performed this weekend, in the castle's chai, a beautiful stone structure where the wine used to be stored... Meet our three elves!

Here's a passage from this magical play (Act V, Scene 2, Puck's speech):
Now the hungry lion roars,
And the wolf behowls the moon;
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
All with weary task fordone.
Now the wasted brands do glow,
Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
Puts the wretch that lies in woe
In remembrance of a shroud.