Le Crime Pas Fait - Espace Gerson, Lyon

Le crime pas fait returns to Espace Gerson: a night of intrigue on our intimate stage

From our vantage point in the wings at Espace Gerson, we have watched rehearsals for Le crime pas fait evolve into a crisp, mischievous theatrical machine designed for our intimate room. The piece plays with the grammar of mystery theatre, but twists it into something delightfully contrary: an investigation into a crime that never actually occurred. That inversion is where the joy lies for our audience; it lets the performers court suspense while inviting laughter at the futility of airtight alibis, the ego of detectives, and the wild logic of suspects who insist on proving nothing happened. Our technical team has shaped a low-lit, cabaret-friendly environment—sound cues that flare and vanish, a desk lamp that becomes a spotlight of suspicion, and prop work that rewards close attention from the first row to the back tables. At Espace Gerson, that proximity is a feature: the tiniest gesture becomes a clue, and the audience’s intuition becomes part of the dramaturgy. We love how this production uses the room’s warmth and agility to collapse the distance between stage and spectators, letting the plot’s red herrings dart right across your feet.

Inside the artist’s new season: craft sharpened, rhythm heightened, and playful misdirection

This season, the creative team behind Le crime pas fait has been refining its approach to timing and audience interaction, sharing works-in-progress in small-format previews before landing with us in Lyon. Our programming staff was struck by the way the ensemble updates classic whodunit codes with contemporary stage language: nimble shifts in point of view, micro-monologues that break the fourth wall without puncturing the mood, and a recurring motif that treats silence as a clue. Between residencies and festival showings, the artists have honed transitions so smooth that a glance becomes a pivot, a pause becomes a confession, and a whispered aside turns into a laugh line. Without spoiling the surprises, we can say that the current iteration is tighter, funnier, and more musically paced than earlier tryouts—our lighting grid and acoustics have been mapped precisely into their cueing, producing those satisfying ripples where the room discovers the joke at the same instant. It’s the kind of craftsmanship we relish hosting at Espace Gerson: ambitious, elastic, and built to reward a live audience that leans forward.

Welcoming Le crime pas fait to Espace Gerson also gives us the chance to spotlight our ongoing commitment to new writing in Lyon. The production sits at the crossroads of theatrical storytelling and sly, near-improv wit, and our team has worked hand in hand with the artists to dial the show’s rhythm to the heartbeat of our space. Expect a staging that plays with scale: a seemingly throwaway prop becomes a breadcrumb trail; a simple chair reconfigures into an interrogation room; the room’s laughter triggers fresh feints and reveals. In conversations after rehearsal, the company described this run as part of a broader creative arc—expanding the piece’s palette, developing a companion short-form project for digital platforms, and exploring a touring version that preserves the agility that our stage encourages. For us, the pleasure is in watching audience intuition dance with the performers’ misdirection. At Espace Gerson, that exchange is immediate: you hear the gasp, feel the chuckle spread, and sense the collective mind snap to a new possibility—all while chasing a mystery that, deliciously, refuses to exist.