Bouvard & Pécuchet: comedy based on Flaubert at the Théâtre de Poche-Montparnasse

From November 11, 2025,the Théâtre de Poche-Montparnasse presents Bouvard & Pécuchet, a stage adaptation of Gustave Flaubert's last novel. Géraud Bénech's staging, designed with Marc Chouppart, offers a faithful and playful reinterpretation of this unfinished work, whose satire of knowledge, certainties, and encyclopedic obsessions remains highly modern. This is an opportunity to rediscover two emblematic figures of French literature in a condensed, rhythmic, and resolutely theatrical version.

The plot is set in Paris in the^mid-19th century, where two office workers, Bouvard and Pécuchet, become friends. Following an inheritance, they leave the capital to settle in the countryside and devote themselves to the study of multiple disciplines. Agriculture, chemistry, history, politics, arts, and religion: everything becomes an excuse to experiment. Their enthusiasm, fueled by a frenzy to learn, leads them into a series of attempts that are as ambitious as they are risky, giving rise to comical disappointments and revealing the limits of their encyclopedic quest.

Géraud Bénech's staging plays on the art of the duo and the comic mechanics that arise from the rhythm of trials and failures. The staging is based on a lively structure in which changes of space and situation follow one another in rapid succession, recreating the perpetual movement of the novel. The adaptation choices favor an approach that highlights the precision of Flaubert's text while incorporating visual humor inspired by burlesque.

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On stage, Jean-Paul Farré and Marc Chouppart embody the two protagonists with the complicity of a duo, exploring the contrasts between naivety, ambition, and obstinacy. Their interpretation highlights the satirical dimension of the story while emphasizing the tenderness shown to these characters driven by a desire to understand the world. Their performance is deliberately stripped down, leaving room for the text, the rhythm, and the comical situations that arise from the heroes' many experiments.

This adaptation of Bouvard & Pécuchet is in line with the artistic vision of the Théâtre de Poche-Montparnasse, which promotes great literary texts revisited for the stage. Through this "manual of absurd sciences" brought to the theater, the production humorously questions the accumulation of knowledge and the quest for truth, resonating with contemporary issues related to transmission and knowledge.

Bouvard & Pécuchet can be seen at the Théâtre de Poche-Montparnasse from November 11, 2025.

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