You don’t need to understand French to enjoy the hip-hop gymnastics of Droles de Mecs, a high-energy, feel-good acrobatic dance show playing in Paris through Jan. 15, 2012. You simply need to give yourself over to the pleasure of watching five super-fit guys (mecs) ham it up in highly orchestrated athletic merriment along with a quick-changing sound bites of tunes familiar to non-French spectators.
Luis Ribeiro, the show’s creator and co-director, steals nearly every scene he appears in thanks to his ability to combine physical prowess with facial and bodily expressiveness. Shiler Pierrima makes for a fine side-kick in some scenes thanks to both his physique (he’s a tall black man) and his efforts to invest himself in each of his outsized roles. The other three—Kevin Perez, Riyad Bassim and co-director Benjamin Renaudin—fulfill their athletic duties on stage well though without the expressiveness of the other two.
In addition to its appeal to young adults, Droles de mecs is family-friendly entertainment, provided that your family doesn’t mind harmless locker-room references to male genitalia.
Not only are there no foreign words to get in the way of a non-French spectator’s appreciation of the acrobatics, dance and physical humor here, but the parodies of and references to American music, movies and TV series of the 70s, 80s and 90s make Droles de Mecs easily accessible to non-French speakers. The show’s title is itself a Frenchified American reference—to the series “Charlie’s Angels,” “Drôles de dames” in French, with gym rats in the place of bathing beauties.
As I heard one 30-year-old woman say to her girlfriend on the way out of the show: “We’ve definitely got to get our guys back into the gym.”
Droles de Mecs at La Grande Comédie until Jan. 15, 2012. 40 rue de Clichy, 9th arrondissement. Metro Place de Clichy. Wed.-Sat. at 9:30pm and Sun. at 6pm. Tickets: 22.50€ – 29.50€. 75 minutes without intermission.