A sketch comedy by Jean-Pierre Martinez
English translation by the author
Many different characters (males or females)
A sketch comedy about time, life, death, love, and the eternal cycle…
This text is available to read for free. However, an authorisation is required from the author prior to any public performance, whether by professional or amateur companies. To get in touch with Jean-Pierre Martinez and ask an authorisation to represent one of his works CONTACT FORM
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In Praise of Wasted Time
Framed by an enigmatic awakening and an epilogue that symbolically restores the setting to its original state, the play brings together twenty-five sketches exploring our relationship with time. Couples, strangers, travellers, elderly people and even the last representatives of humanity meet, wait, remember or contemplate their own disappearance. Each scene captures a particular moment of existence, from the birth of desire to the end of the world.
The collection does not rely on a continuous plot, but on a series of variations and echoes. Characters, names and recurring motifs return: Babac the raven, journeys, clocks, memory, first dates and final moments. Time therefore does not move in a straight line. It circles back, falls out of sync, fades away and begins again, mirroring the performance itself, which ends with the promise of another show to come.
The comic mechanism often consists in transplanting a familiar situation into an unexpected universe. An interplanetary journey is booked like a package holiday, the Earth is put up for sale like a piece of property, a speed limit penalises drivers for going too slowly, and a clock becomes a mysterious archaeological relic. The reasoning follows a rigorous logic all the way to absurdity, while the great metaphysical questions are brought back down to the most trivial everyday concerns.
Beneath this fantasy lies a more melancholy reflection on memory, ageing and disappearance. The characters try to hold on to a love, a memory or just a few more minutes, yet they can only know that a moment was the last once it has already passed. Theatre then becomes a metaphor for existence: everyone comes on stage without knowing their role, spends a few moments in the light, then disappears into darkness. But unlike life, a performance can always begin again, as though lost time itself could be replayed.