Les Fiancés de la Tour Eiffel

“Masked, gloved, wearing make-up and costumes, perfecting the beauty of a gesture, repeating a movement a hundred times over, seven mentally handicapped people convey their passion for the theatre… In everyday life, they carry out rather routine manual tasks… Building on powerful emotional ties, they are constructing dreams. Anne-Marie, the unruly child of the troop, would very much like to marry André. Bobby, forever in love, is eternally rejected by the silent Colette, amongst others… Yet the imminence of an extraordinary event, which they have nervously been awaiting for months, the excitement and thrill smoothe over the important and not-so-important annoyances of life: The troup Pourquoi pas nous? is going to put on Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel at the European Festival for mentally handicapped artists, held at Figeac in France… In the moments of grace when they speak directly to Gilles Blais, the narrator, and to us the audience, the mentally handicapped express quite sublimely the fact that they are people, people in their own right, with a marvellous ability to go beyond themselves.” (Christiane Boily)