ARSEHOLES: A NEW PLAY ABOUT ARTHUR RIMBAUD & PAUL VERLAINE

Event Information

In September 1871, Verlaine, an established poet living with his wife’s parents’, took seventeen-year-old Rimbaud under his wing, inviting him to move into the family home in Paris. It was not long before Verlaine fell under the spell of the talented and irreverent teenager. The two became lovers, and their violent and hedonistic relationship would destroy Verlaine’s reputation, torture his wife Mathilde, and alienate his friends and colleagues. At the same time, it was perhaps only with Rimbaud that Verlaine was ever truly free. Whether the two of them knew it or not, their meeting would change the course of French poetry forever.

At once dark, comical, and passionate, ‘Arseholes’ tells the story of a love affair like no other. You will be taken on a journey through nineteenth-century French family life, absinthe-fuelled poetry readings at the Hôtel des Étrangers, the rags and riches of Victorian London, and a hotel room in Brussels laid ready for a suicide, the whole layered with saucy dialogue, French music, and period costumes.
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Written & Directed by Julia Hartley

www.ionianproductionstheatre.com