Ch. 1 ~ MOULIN ROUGE ~ Into the Dark (Patreon)

I wake up late, rush madly around the room making sure I haven’t forgotten anything, and blearily stumble my way to the elevator, bags in tow.

Jean-Jacques, the director of the Moulin Rouge, e-mailed us two days ago requesting that we arrive to set up our lighting and staging at 12pm. The initial agreed-upon time was 1pm. I didn’t bat an eyelash at the adjustment at when the message first arrived, but that lost hour is now time I am sorely wishing we had still. The France’s Got Talent finale saw us getting back to our hotel rooms at 3am.
In short, sleep was in short supply last night. 

Oh well, I think. You arrived after a redeye flight (and three hours sleep the night prior to said redeye flight) and went straight into a 12-hour rehearsal for the talent show. You did that already. You can do this too. 

I turn the volume down on my other internal voice, shoving the –– [you can’t just keep functioning on next to zero sleep] [no sleep means injuries] [less sleep equals less bendy] [you’re not 19 years old] [you’d better watch out for being grumpy] [how the hell does Troy do this without any perceivable physical change] [because you have to work for yours and his flex is on tap] [maybe he just needs less sleep] [or is used to less sleep?] [shut up] [you’re going to need to be ON for these people once you arrive] [how do we get a coffee before going in for rehearsal] [France isn’t super big on the ‘coffee to go’ thing…] ­­–– ­­deep into the back of my mind as I pull open my phone to check an alert.   

Troy’s woken up late too; luckily, at this point all we’ve lost out on with our tardiness is the opportunity to get some breakfast in us. We’re not completely screwed in terms of getting downtown on time. 

Jen and I sit in the lobby discussing the best plan of action while we wait for Troy.

The local transit strike is still on, which is tripling the amount of cars normally on the road and eliminating the possibility of what would normally be a very simple train ride south. I look around at the monster bags all of us are hauling – and I still have the bag of FGT aerial fabric and rigging that I need to ditch, but didn’t have the brainpower to sort through last night to make sure I wasn’t throwing away anything valuable.  

These things aren’t gonna fit in a Peugeot …  

Troy walks up, bleary-eyed but conscious. "Good morning..." he mumbles.
“What do we think?” I ask the group. “Uber?”
“Probably the best plan at this point,” says Jen. 

I punch a request for an Uber XL into the app, sending up a prayer to the rideshare gods that ‘XL’ in Europe doesn’t mean a slightly larger Peugeot than the regular ones stuck in gridlock on the narrow cobblestone streets just past the hotel. 

Uber helpfully informs me that this ride is going to be about 30 euros. I actively repress the urge to convert currency to CAD and watch our ride draw closer on the active map instead with a sandy, decaffeinated squint. 

We pile into a giant black Mercedes van that pulls up (yesss) and start a long, horn-honking-filled drive from St-Denis down to Montmartre. It seems like the whole of Paris is out in any and all available cars in the city, jamming up the streets in an inefficient, frustrated, everyone-is-running-late mess. 

I e-mail Jean-Jacques that we’re running about 15 minutes late. 

Nothing else to do now. 

I briefly fall asleep in the van, and jolt abruptly back into wakefulness, disoriented. I’m about to pull out my phone again to see where we are on Google Maps but then –
 

We pull around a corner, and the famous, glowing façade of the Moulin Rouge looms large in my vision. 

My heart quickens. I hold my breath slightly without realizing it, drinking in the view: the rotating sign; the massive red windmill; the tourists – even in winter – stopping everywhere nearby to take photos of one another. 

Our driver pulls the van over to stop at a small pedestrian island between the two sides of Blvd de Clichy, directly across from the cabaret.

The Moulin Rouge ... a legendary space of irreverence and light and joie de vivre that deepens its own rich mythology with the passing decades, fixed in time without dimming or diminishing as generations of guests and performers flow through it.

Holy **** this is really happening, filters through my sleep-glazed brain fog. We’re going in there … I’m going to be on that stage in there tonight. 

I’m distantly aware of a small internal dissonance happening, though. My brain slips back and forth between two considerations:
The Moulin Rouge is not a venue that I ever once thought I would be working in; it is strange to have such a strong, emotional reaction to something (or an impending something) that has never played across the stage of your mind.
Something you didn’t dream of, hope for, fix in your mind as a goal to work towards. The tidy cliché of declaring it a dream come true is unavailable to me, because it simply … never entered into my brain as a possible universe.

Before the work experience in France that this year brought to me, it was a place made of gossamer imaginings from grade-school French class lessons and the overwrought romanticisms of this or that popular film. It’s a place of feathers and sequins; of beautiful women, and happy music; glamour and nostalgia; century-old history that is inseparably synonymous with the long-limbed, effortlessly elegant illustrations of Toulouse Latrec. 

After Cirque de Demain, it crystallized into an understanding of the importance and promise that an institution of such history and reputation holds for a modern performer. Through the whispered commentary of other artists at the festival, through the stories recounted of performers who experienced the support and security a place like the Moulin Rouge can offer (especially in a time when such robust contracts are rare), it slowly took on a more concrete shape in my mind. 

It’s one thing to have grown up without the foundational bones of dance or theatre training, or a childhood filled with physical performance – something that might prove fertile ground to plant such dreams in.

It’s entirely another thing to have stumbled into that life for oneself and be surprised by the doors that are unexpectedly held open for you to walk through.

We spill out of the van, and I’m barely able to tear my eyes away from the façade as I help our driver shepherd our small mountain of luggage to the safety of the sidewalk. 

Finally, we three are standing there, looking up at the slowly turning blades of the windmill. The tour busses pulling up and away from the curb. The steady stream of humanity entering and leaving the box office.
I breathe in the moment. 

Hold it. 

Exhale fog into the cool, damp winter air.
And we cross the street.
 

We are met at the door by two very large doormen/security guards, bundled up against the mild chill in clean-cut black wool dress coats and leather gloves. 

“Bonjour. Nous avons ici pour Jean-Jacques?” I try. 

“Ouvrez les sacs, s’il vous plait,” comes the deep, gruff response.

It’s too quick for my sleep-deprived brain and I just blink rapidly. Répétez, s’il vous plait? is half-formed in my brain even as the second doorman politely repeats his order more slowly, and with slightly different phrasing. 

“Ohhhh,” I say, grinning sheepishly and smacking my forehead as I turn to Troy and Jen. “Bags. He wants to search our bags.”

We’re all bent down and halfway through unzipping our suitcases when I hear a familiar voice from above my head speaking rapidly in French, and then, heavily accented English:

“No, no, is okay.”

I look up. It’s Jean-Jacques.
This is the man who presented us with our completely unexpected award at Cirque de Demain. At the time, I had no idea who he was. Now, of course, he is unmistakable to me: a thick hatch of white hair; a steady, ponderous gate; a serious face that quickly crinkles into one familiar with smiling. He’s dressed casually, the collar and cuffs of a crisp white dress shirt peeking out from beneath a festive red wool sweater.

Ils sont dans le spectacle! he’s explaining to the doormen. Ohhhh, say the doormen. And in we go.
 

Lush red tones and cozy warmth envelop us.
From the thick-pile carpet underfoot, to the vibrant wallpaper, to the high ceilings accented with massive crystal chandeliers – everything is a rich, saturated crimson hue. 

A wide, grand staircase leads us down into the entrance foyer, sunken below ground level. It’s quiet and empty now, save for a few employees on their hands and knees busily constructing what looks like it will be a large wall of silvery Christmas foliage. Glass-fronted alcoves are recessed at regular intervals in the walls, containing historical items and posters. 

Jean-Jacques motions for us to leave our suitcases at the base of the stairs. He’s chatting away amicably in French to us, asking us how our flight was, how the talent show went, how we’ve been. I stumble over my words, the French feeling clumsy on my tongue as my mind is overloaded by the opulent setting we’re walking through. 

It’s beautiful, I manage to stammer out. Jean-Jacques chuckles and smiles and forges ahead through the foyer.

Come, come, this way, he says, leading us toward a second set of doors. First we meet the stage director, and the lighting team.

This second set of doors is far more mysterious than the first set that we walked through from the street. While the doors at street level had a black lacquer that hid the interior from view, they were large, glossy, and new.
These ones – the ones that the heart of the cabaret lies behind – are visibly older. They’re curiously short compared to the airy height of the rest of the space, narrower in diameter and more cramped together – six or eight of them, all in a row. They look to be solid wood, painted in an old, dusty green colour. Small circular portholes edged in gold metal are inset at shoulder height.
Jean-Jacques grasps the tarnished metal handles of one door and pulls it open with a strong tug, letting a gust of cooler air mix into the warmth of the lobby.
We filter through, one by one, into the inky darkness of the theatre.