LES EPESSES, France — While most French theaters remain closed and live sports won’t resume until July, there is one arena in the country where thousands can already sit down to watch a show. In a Roman-style amphitheater at the Puy du Fou, a historical theme park in western France, gladiators in period costumes have been performing daily since June 11.
The reopening of the Puy du Fou, which offers 15 productions involving professional actors, was met with dismay by the performing arts sector when it was announced in late May. Most summer festivals, including the one in Avignon, France’s biggest theater showcase, have been canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. Accusations of favoritism flew after Philippe de Villiers, the far-right politician who founded the Puy du Fou, shared on Twitter that the French president, Emmanuel Macron, had interceded to help the park.
While other theme parks in low-risk areas, like the Parc Astérix, also reopened this month, the Puy du Fou is almost entirely reliant on theatrical performances rather than amusement rides. It started life in 1977 as a large-scale re-enactment of the history of the Vendée region, the “Cinéscénie,” featuring hundreds of local amateurs. In 1989, the current park came into being, with a mix of immersive, open-air and traditional stage shows dotted around reconstructed historical villages and plenty of green space.
Last weekend, the crowds were already somewhat overwhelming after months of lockdown and social distancing. According to a spokeswoman for the park, the Puy du Fou had an average of 5,000 visitors a day on Saturday and Sunday. It felt as if all of them were sitting in the amphitheater for “The Sign of Triumph,” an extravagant show involving a parade inspired by the Roman Empire; chariot racing; and choreographed gladiatorial fights.
Social-distancing guidelines were, plainly, impossible to follow at many points. While the Puy du Fou limited the number of visitors allowed in each show and kept every other row of seats empty in some venues, the free-seating policy made it difficult to enforce a set distance between audience members. Officials recommended that visitors wear masks, but they were mandatory only in enclosed spaces, and few guests seemed moved to put them on while outside.
Does it matter, now that the pandemic is more under control in France? It’s hard to tell, especially since government regulations change regularly. Still, as I sat nearly shoulder to shoulder with others to watch what was ostensibly a form of theater, the overall setup of the Puy du Fou didn’t feel very different from that of many open-air summer festivals that won’t go ahead this year.
As theater, the Puy du Fou’s offerings, whose typical running time is 20 to 40 minutes, are an odd mix of high-quality production values and one-dimensional storytelling. As is par for the course with amusement parks, the goal is clearly to wow and entertain, and a lot of effort has gone into the stage designs and visual effects.
Medieval fortresses and castles have been recreated as background for shows including “The Vikings” and “The Secret of the Lance,” while “The Last Panache” takes place in a revolving auditorium, in which the seating area slowly turns to follow the action on a 360-degree stage. (Just imagine what some of today’s top theater directors would do with such a setting, given the chance.) “The Wedding of Fire,” new this year and performed at dusk, involves astonishing feats of engineering: Its set materializes from underwater as characters appear to dance on the surface of a lake.
Unfortunately, the stories being told aren’t merely frothy excuses for visual stunts. While a spokeswoman took pains to note that the park shouldn’t be seen as striving for historical accuracy, the Puy du Fou sends mixed messages to visitors. The motto featured on its merchandising is “History Awaits Only You,” and multiple shows do make historical assertions without a disclaimer.
Historians have long disputed the Puy du Fou’s narratives, which initially stemmed from a desire to shine a spotlight on a traumatic period in local history. The Vendée was a staunchly Catholic and royalist region at the time of the French Revolution, and many lives were lost there in the civil war that ensued.
Still, while asserting that its story is “authentic” in the final credits, “The Last Panache” is hardly subtle or balanced in recounting that period. Onstage, the revolutionaries are depicted as bloodthirsty monsters whose goal is to suppress “freedom” (the creators must be immune to irony) and “exterminate the Vendean race.”
Nearly all the narratives also come with a disturbing level of religious subtext. In “The Vikings,” a saint literally comes out of a reliquary to subjugate said Vikings, who fall to their knees and promise to follow his teachings — an actual deus ex machina. “The Secret of the Lance” endows Joan of Arc’s lance with divine fire-based powers. “The First Kingdom,” an immersive production in which the audience meanders from scene to scene, culminates in the Catholic baptism of King Clovis I, recreated here in grandiose fashion, with fleurs-de-lis (a symbol of French royalty) projected onto large screens of water around him.
It’s all in keeping with the politics of de Villiers, a nationalist and traditionalist figure who received just over 2 percent of the vote in the 2007 presidential election. According to the spokeswoman, de Villiers has written all the shows presented at the Puy du Fou and co-directs them with his son, Nicolas de Villiers, and the park’s general director, Laurent Albert.
The actors’ valiant performances are flattened, too, by the decision to have them lip-sync to recorded dialogue overlaid with kitsch, fantasy-style music. In the context of amusement parks steeped in a fictional universe, it might be easier to focus on the spectacle and forget the rest; when history is involved, the results start to feel a lot like proselytizing.
At the end of the day, the real star turns came from the animals. Trained horses, camels, tigers and lions all make appearances at the Puy du Fou, and “The Phantom Birds’ Dance” brings majestic birds of prey from the park’s own falconry school. At times, they hover just centimeters over the audience’s heads — enough of a thrill to obscure the flimsy story.
And since the show extends to the park’s stores, which promote historical crafts, one of the greatest pleasures of the Puy du Fou is to strike up a conversation with a cooper or a glassmaker who works in full view of visitors, in period costume. Without the park, several of these people said, their trade wouldn’t be viable.
In that sense, there is value in the Puy du Fou’s commitment to local craftsmanship. If any of its productions were presented as regular historical plays, however, they would be laughed out of the theater. Perhaps the second-most-visited theme park in France should be subject to similar scrutiny.
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