Le Mandat

Seven years after the fall of the Tsar, in a Moscow communal apartment, two families hope to find their place in a Russia in the throes of revolution. To achieve this, the Smetanitch and Gulatchkin families hope that the son of the first family will marry the daughter of the second. And, above all, that the latter's brother will join the Communist Party to obtain a "mandate" that will provide everyone with the security they need in these troubled times.

In this burlesque farce, full of absurdity, two visions of the world clash: that of the nostalgics of the old order, the tsarists, and that of the post-revolutionary petty-bourgeoisie. Patrick Pineau brilliantly stages Nicolaï Erdman's first comedy, which was banned in Russia until 1987. The thirteen actors, magnificently directed, enthusiastically embody comic scenes where misunderstandings, bon mots and ubiquitous situations follow one another, denouncing the violence of Stalinist politics and the generalized paranoia of the time.