"Villon la vie" Play, by Michel Arbatz

François Villon was born in 1431 in Paris. Having lost his father, his mother entrusted him at the age of seven to Canon Villon, who gave him his name and went on to educate him to the level of a bachelor’s degree. A poor student, he turned into a troublemaker but had a gift for language. At the age of twenty, wounded in a fight, he fled Paris and its swift justice. He returned the following year at Christmas to steal, with a few accomplices, five hundred écus from the Collège de Navarre. From that moment on, Villon’s short life was divided between wandering, prison, and futile attempts to have his poetry recognized by the princes. He was eventually sentenced to hanging for an obscure crime. He was thirty years old and appealed: his sentence was commuted to ten years of banishment from Paris. All trace of him was then lost, but before disappearing, he compiled the best of his writings in prison into a poignant and joyful Testament that has influenced hundreds of great poets around the world to this day.
Michel Arbatz has adapted this play into a modern show brimming with energy and surprises—a true challenge for an actor-singer. He is accompanied on guitar by Olivier-Roman Garcia.
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