« ...The Halqa, the
audience in a circle surrounding a character at
the same time story-telling, half mad, jester,
musician, comedian. Simon Elbaz, the « mad
story-teller » takes up this pre-theatrical
maghrebian tradition and gives a very personal
one man show. » Libération
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«...Simon Elbaz has made it the
central piece of a show which is at the same time
musical and theatrical. It combines three
languages: french (preominant), arabic and hebrew.
This allows the author-actor unusual play of
words and tongues. » La
Voix du Nord
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A universal message
« ...Played before a multi-cultural public,
this play half-comic, half-tragic is indisputably
original as far as that the message is given in
three languages (french, arabic,and
hebrew) but the laughter is universal and breaks
down cultural barriers. Tolerance, respect of the
others, hers are sensitive themes, treated in an
intelligent way by only one actor but many
characters. »Le Dauphiné
Libéré
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A Tale Of Extraordinary
madness
« ...Following the Halqa tradition, this
moroccan jew mad on the theatre has produced a
character, the jester of Mellah adopted by the
three communities, jew, moslem and christian. His
one-man show Mchouga-Maboul, at Casa, Meknes and
Khouribga which he has conceived like a Halqa,
the audience encircling minstrel who wanders from
souk to souk, village to village and who is the
last to laugh at his own words. Who has said that
the oral tradition was dead and buried? The hero
of this Halqa is triple: polyglot who has
embraced three religions; speaking in french,
joking in hebrew, singing in arabic. The order is
of no importance, as he is the three at the same
time, in the same show and in the three languages.
The three communities in a united public. »Almaghrib
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A mad from the desert
« ...Mchouga-Maboul speaks in french,
hebrew, arabic as many languages as was used by
the communities under the French Protectorate.
Mchouga-maboul tells the tale of a village on the
eve of independence. Dancing, playing the lute or
singing melopoeia, he sways the members of the
audience between hilary (provoked by a stinging
jewish humour) and the despair of blindness. By
the means of languages or dance, he passes from
one to the other like a dancing dervish. He has
confronted his stage experience with the halqa
and this gives a rather uncommon one-man show. »
Libération - Lyon
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«...Simon Elbaz has found his
clown, Mchouga, the character which he plays, has
finished by catching up with him. Beyond the
world, the driving language of Simon Elbaz is the
universal language of the body. Mchouga-Maboul, a
spicy piece,to be tasted » Actualité
Juive
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«...Simon Elbaz acting Mchouga,
the legendary beggar, clown, jester is
outstanding and unexpected.Adopted by the three
communities of Maghreb: arab, jew and european. » Le Nouvel Observateur
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« ...Playing on words,
tragedy, comedy, songs, nursery rhymes, poems,
dances. Only the joker: Simon Elbaz. Not to go to
see it you must be joking. » L'Arche
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Between Orient and
Occident
«...You can only be seduced by this jewish
humour which he leads through all the breaches of
a shattered community because of exile. With an
out of the ordinary talent, Simon Elbaz offers us
a show punctuated by moments both hilarious and
taciturn.»La voix sépharabe
du Québec
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Morocan memory
« ...Simon Elbaz with a generous talent,
offers us a character worthy of the «Valeureux »
of Albert Cohen. Simon Elbaz has gone seeking to
the bottom of the moroccan memory, a legendary
character, a strange fellow at the crossroads of
three cultures: french, arab, jew: three tongues,
three religions...Simon Elbaz draws from the oral
tradition to create a« one-man show» (as it is
thus decidedly that you can call a show with one
man alone) which does not suffer from any slack
period. Mchouga is a kind of free man, who can do
as he wishes, who can knock around wherever he
pleases. This is the man who can address God or
the devil. From laughter, thick and fast, Simon
Elbaz topples his audience over into emotion. The
show is fresh, tender touching the heart. »Le Midi Libre
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« ...French, jewish,
arabic, three languages which he declines on the
world of memory, «if I forget you,warns Simon
Maboul, may my tongue stick to my palate». Simon
has brought to life again the Jinns of his
village who are living underground. He, all alone,
has remade the world of jugglers and acrobats. He
has taken his lute, placed on it his warm voice
and words of fun and laughter. In three versions,
all original: hebrew, arabic, french: christian,
jew, moslem. Poet rather than prophet, he goes
indifferently from mosque to synagogue. Beware to
those who would shut him up in some or other
chapel!Blind and mad, but neither stupid nor
sectarian. The moroccan writer Edmond Amran El
Maleh speaks marvellously of the character
created by Simon Elbaz, of thislaughter which «thwarts
the shutting in of tragedy». Beyond the
accidental, he is the folk costume, the power of
unveiling, the permanence of a human sign. » Mille et Un Soleils, Stock
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