Guignol Et Le Concours De Coups De Bâton - Théâtre La Maison De Guignol, Lyon

At THEATRE LA MAISON DE GUIGNOL: Guignol et le concours de coups de bâton

From our vantage point inside THEATRE LA MAISON DE GUIGNOL, nestled in the heart of Vieux Lyon, we are delighted to welcome audiences to Guignol et le concours de coups de bâton. Our stage is purpose-built for the quicksilver repartee, rhythmic knockabout, and sly social wit that define Guignol Lyonnais. The intimacy of our room allows every whisper of the puppeteers, every flourish of the bâton, and every burst of laughter to carry with warmth and precision. As the audience calls out, warns, and teases the characters, the puppets answer back with the streetwise charm that has made Guignol the people’s hero for generations. Here, hand-crafted figures, richly painted scenery, and live cues animate a fable of mischief and justice: a “contest” that doubles as a playful mirror for community life. Children discover the joy of participation; adults savor double entendres and a robust dose of local spirit. We pride ourselves on honoring tradition while keeping the timing, gags, and musical cheekiness as fresh as the day’s headlines.

Our artistic season and the living craft behind the curtains

Programming this new rendezvous, our creative team is continuing a season devoted to the living art of manipulation, voice, and music. At THEATRE LA MAISON DE GUIGNOL, we approach Guignol as a contemporary language: brisk, flexible, and endlessly inventive. Recent rehearsals have refined the give-and-take between the emblematic quartet—Guignol, Gnafron, Madelon, and the gendarme—so that each exchange lands with theatrical clarity and comic bite. We have explored dynamic soundscapes that punctuate the action without overwhelming it, and sculpted lighting that turns our small stage into a nimble canvas for sudden reversals and winking asides. The results appear in Guignol et le concours de coups de bâton, where rhythm is king: beats are tight, silences are eloquent, and the cracks of the bâton function like drum hits in a well-tuned band. This is not nostalgia; it is repertory played in the present tense, as close to the audience as a confidant. Our venue’s scale encourages the puppeteers to sharpen detail—the angle of a wrist, the blink of a painted eye—so that the humor feels handcrafted, immediate, and unmistakably Lyonnais.

What awaits you in this production is the joy of contradiction: a light-hearted “contest” that lets Guignol champion fairness over bluster, quick wits over brute force, and community over self-importance. The dramaturgy favors agility, with situations that snowball into improbable tangles before untying themselves in a wink, and with running jokes that children can follow while grown-ups savor the irony. Expect a cascade of quips and reversals, a choreography of feints and near-misses, and the audience’s own interventions shaping the momentum of the show. Within the walls of THEATRE LA MAISON DE GUIGNOL, where every seat feels close to the footlights, that alchemy becomes personal: you see the grain of the wood, the swish of a skirt, and the exuberant arc of the bâton as if it were drawn just for you. For families discovering Guignol for the first time as well as connoisseurs of the tradition, Guignol et le concours de coups de bâton delivers the essential pleasures of our house—sharp satire, generous play, and craftsmanship you can feel in your bones.