Guignol

On Wednesdays, weekends, and holidays, a particularly French form of entertainment sends ripples of laughter across the Parc des Buttes Chaumont. It's the Guignol, a kind of puppet show invented in the late 18th-century by a silkweaver/sometimes dentist named Laurent Mourget. The puppet show started out as a way to entice customers to sit for teeth-pulling, and the fact that it succeeded suggests that Polichinelle (Punch in English), Guignol (after whom the artform was named), and the other stock characters created over the years were just what the dentist ordered. (Unlike Guignol, I am not funny.)

The poster below shows some of those stock characters (extra points to anyone who can name each one) and to the right you'll see the guignol we know best, near the entrance to the Parc des Buttes Chaumont at  Avenue Simon Bolivar and Rue Botzaris.


We still haven't gotten around to going inside (we're too embarrassed to enter without small children in tow) but from the sound of it, fun is had by all who attend, adult and child alike. So much fun, in fact, that I couldn't resist the temptation of recording a few minutes of the show. Yes, I was that creepy guy you saw standing by the entrance with an audio recorder. In my defense, I was technically walking Panda, and checking out ticket prices . . . yeah.

Maybe one of our intrepid native French-speaking readers can translate the jokes and wordplay that caused all the laughing and audience participation. And maybe one of the same readers would be willing to loan us some children so we can experience the guignol from inside the theater for once!