French company display “Je Suis Charlie” signs during curtain call at Sydney Festival opening night.

This evening a sold-out audience at the Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay had just been dazzled by the opening night of Tabac Rouge, the headline production of this year’s Sydney Festival performed by French physical theatre troupe Compagnie du Hanneton led by circus visionary James Thierrée. During the curtain call the cast raised signs with the now viral message “Je Suis Charlie” (I am Charlie) in tribute to the 12 men and women who lost their lives less than 24 hours earlier during a terrorist attack in Paris on the offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

The cast of Tabac Rouge at the Sydney Theatre this evening (photo: Elissa Blake)

The audience unanimously rose to their feet to give the cast a standing ovation, with many of the cast on stage visibly moved by the show of solidarity from a city who just weeks earlier had suffered a similarly senseless terrorist attack.

Read Limelight Digital Editor, Maxim Boon’s review of Tabac Rouge here. 

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