GOOD-BYE ODEON, HELLO AVIGNON
At the very moment that Paris’s Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe is enjoying its greatest success, both critically and at the box office, the French government has suddenly decided to sack its head, Olivier Py, and replace him with the Swiss director Luc Bondy. Any suspicions that this might have something to do with the recent hit play Adagio, concerning the former Socialist president, François Mitterrand, in which the current president, Nicolas Sarkozy, is portrayed as a political lightweight, are surely misplaced? Or maybe not… As a not-so-bad consolation prize, Py has been given the job of director of the Festival d’Avignon, France’s leading summer theater festival. Nick Hammond