Berkeley, Calif.: Paris postcards, tossed in the air.(FRONT and CENTER)(Fetes de la Nuit)(Theater Review)

American Theatre, February, 2005 by Schloff, Aaron Mack

What did you bring back from your last trip to Paris? A postcard from the Louvre, a miniature Eiffel Tower or, perhaps, the memory of something at once both brainy and sensual--a great meal or some fantastic, romantic dalliance? If you are playwright Charles L. Mee Jr., your mind turns to the latter two, as he proves in his new play, Fetes de la Nuit, premiering this February at Berkeley Repertory Theatre under Les Waters's direction.

In repeated visits to Paris over the last half-dozen years, Mee has found something that is positively un-American. "Americans have a genius for making progress," he says. "The French, by contrast, have a particular genius for taking pleasure in everyday life." To construct this everyday pleasure on stage, Mee used his...