Le Petomane Louisville Suffuses Its Comedies with Sly Commentary

Describing Le Petomane Louisville veers into the same absurdist terrority that the theater company loves to explore in its productions: it’s sadly not well known in its hometown, but Le Petomane Louisville was ranked fifth as Baltimore City Paper’s Top Ten List in its 2007 Year in Stage, and the theater company performed at the prestigious Cherry Lane Theatre, New York City’s oldest off-Broadway theater, in April 2010.

Begun in 2004 by Gregory Maupin and Abigail Bailey Maupin, Le Petomane Theatre Ensemble bills itself as “an ensemble of performing artists dedicated to the creation of new theatrical works and the reconsideration of classic works and forms, with the primary goal of making all of our offerings both artistically and economically accessible.” What that means in practice is that Le Petomane’s performances — whether original scripts devised by the troupe members, satiric classics like Molière’s Don Juan, a Wild West version of William Shakespeare’s As You Like It or a post-modern comedy — tend to a balancing act of farcical physical comedy and sly subversion. Even their performance of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream was peppered with uproarious highjinks. 

The theater company gets its name from the stage name, Le Pétomane, of French entertainer Joseph Pujol, who regaled audiences at Paris’ Moulin Rouge in the late 19th century with an act in which he executed amazing tricks by passing gas. Several of the crowned heads of Europe joined the audience to see Pujol blow out a candle yards away, do impressions and play musical instruments, all through flatulence.  (Le Pétomane created his stage name from Le péter, “to fart,” and the suffix –mane from  “maniac.”)

Most of Le Petomane's performances are at the Rudyard Kipling in Old Louisville.

Admission for Le Petomane performances is as eccentric as everything else about the theater troupe. Tickets are sold on a sliding scale: patrons pay what they deem fair and can afford, anywhere from $8 to $20. As their website notes, “The low end is no higher than the price of a movie ticket; the high end is, to be honest, really not an issue as we will accept any amount above $20 you care to give - it just seemed like a nice round number.  If the show was better than you expected, feel free to toss us some extra spondulix afterwards. Our expenses are greater than our shame.” 

Le Petomane vaudeville alternative theater alternative theatre theater of the absurd commedia d'ell arte comedia dell arte theater theatre live theatre live theater actors acting plays stage Rudyard Kipling