A dozen or so lightbulbs — all hanging from the ceiling, at eye level with the cast — frame scenes in ingenious ways. For intimate conversations, characters frequently gather around a single bulb, as if they were speaking by candlelight. The actors hold and swing the lightbulbs like props, and pull a lever onstage to change the color scheme at regular intervals; at one point, the hanging lights sway in the wind, surrounding the two central lovers like fireflies.
That particular scene is also an early testament to Jolly’s gift for over-the-top theatrics. Silvia and Harlequin, who have just met, circle one another excitedly. Behind them, other cast members, who play sheep in onesies and curly wigs, turn on large wind machines that stir up a blizzard of confetti around the couple and in the auditorium. By the time they kiss, arms outstretched to romantic music, we are in full-blown operatic territory.
The scene’s craft is evident, and the sheep counter its inherent cheesiness somewhat: Throughout Silvia and Harlequin’s meet-cute, they react in hilarious ways, using old-fashioned children’s sound boxes to produce sheep noises.
Elsewhere, Jolly makes coarser comedic choices. When the fairy, a delightfully overbearing character in the hands of Clémence Solignac, asks the still uncivilized Harlequin to kiss her hand, it turns into a pantomime of fellatio on her fingers — to a few gasps from the audience. Later, to produce Silvia’s handkerchief (here, a small apron), he searches up and down his pants with an eagerness that suggests masturbation.
There is a degree of brashness to Jolly’s directing style, which is partly why some French theater critics have never really taken to it. Still, since “Harlequin, Refined by Love,” he has demonstrated a rare ability to straddle the lowbrow/highbrow divide that still cleaves much of French theater. He has gone back and forth between commercial projects like “Starmania” and gigs with prestigious public institutions: In 2018, Jolly was awarded the coveted opening spot at the Avignon Festival, before taking over a respected drama center in the city of Angers, western France, in 2020.
