The play is set in Paris—and
party directly over Paris—in 1864.
Just the year before, in 1863, pioneer photographer Gaspard-Felix
Tournachon, better known by his pseudonym, Nadar, convinced that the future
belonged to those who could command the sky, had built an enormous, red, 6000
cubic meter balloon which he appropriately named Le Geant,
The Giant.
Le Geant served to inspire two novels by his friend, Jules
Verne: From the Earth to the Moon
in 1867, and Five Weeks in a Balloon in
1869. Shortly thereafter was
established The Society for the Encouragement of Aerial Locomotion by Means of
Heavier than Air Machines, with Nadar as president and Verne as secretary.
As the play opens (and almost
immediately thereafter closes), Nadar is becalmed in a pocket of still air near
the Eiffel Tower. His wife,
Ernestine, is calling up to him:
Ernestine (waving a handkerchief at him): Nadar! Nadar!
Nadar (who finally hears her and leans over the edge of Le
Geant’s basket in order to shout back down to her): Yes, dear, what is it?
Ernestine: Come
down, Nadar. It’s time for tea.
Nadar: Not now
dear. I’m busy floating.
Ernestine: Nadar,
it’s just a basket held up by a huge ball of hot air.
Nadar: I’ll be
back later, Ernestine. There’s a
new stirring of breeze.
Ernestine: And so you’ll forego your tea for that big skybound gland,
that airborne breast of yours?
Nadar: I’ll be
back soon, dear. Well have tea then.
Ernestine (exasperated): When?
Nadar: When
I’m next becalmed.
Ernestine: And
when will that be?
Nadar (floating off down the Seine): Who’s to say?
(curtain)
