Josette (premiere) 4+

Josette says: “That is a telephone. Mom told me that. And Jacqueline too.”

Dad answers: “Mom and Jacqueline are wrong. You call this cheese.”

“Do you call this cheese?” asks Josette. “But if you call it cheese, you still think that it *is* a cheese.”

“No,” says Dad, “because you don’t call the cheese cheese, you call it a music box. You call the music box a rug. You call the rug a lamp. You call the ceiling parquet. You call the parquet a ceiling. You call the wall a door.”

Josette lives in the house with her father, mother, and the maid Jacqueline. Papa tells her stories. Quite strange stories, actually, because he is a master at tilting, twisting, and turning words, meanings, and situations upside down—the whole world, you could say.

Just when you thought you knew everything for sure, you aren't even entirely sure who you are anymore, let alone where Dad is. And anyone can be named Jacqueline, by the way. After all, in the absurdist reality, anything is possible.

With this physical, visual performance, we show children that there is a lot of fun to be had with language. Language can be very funny and you can play with it. You can use it to invent crazy stories that stimulate the imagination. You can make the words make music and even make them dance together.

A major source of inspiration for this playful manifesto for imagination are the picture books *4 Tales for Children* by the absurdist Eugène Ionesco.