Rehearsal @ Chenla, Yan Pautrat

The Girl, the Devil and the Mill

In preparation for the Lakhaon festival to be held between September 4 to 11, Lady Penh went out to Chenla Theatre to visit Franck Manzoni, director, staging The Girl, the Devil and the Mill, a play based on a tale of the brothers Grimm.

This show, one of the major two events of the festival (along with a performance by the Royal Ballet of Cambodia), is played in Khmer by Cambodian actors – with Barang-friendly subtitles in both French and English. The plot, revolving around a struggling girl and a prince, is quite universal – but the acting isn’t : the hard part for Franck was to let the actors loosen up from the archetypal characters of traditional theatre. The result is a fairy tale you won’t recognize, retaining a Khmer charm and majesty but with a delightful lightness.

More to come in later editions !