In 2026, Le Marathon des Mots, the famous literature festival in Toulouse, takes over a new cultural space: the Minotaur’s lair.
On Wednesday, April 8 and Thursday, April 9, the mechanical bestiary transforms into Nautilus, offering a truly extraordinary playground for Eric Ruf, member and former administrator of the Comédie-Française.
Taking turns as Captain Nemo, Professor Pierre Arronax, harpooner Ned Land, and Commander Farragut, the actor and director guides the audience through a traveling reading of selected excerpts from Jules Verne’s famous novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
The purring of engines, the tick-tock of machinery, creaks, explosions, flames, water mist, glowing braziers, and clouds of smoke… bring the text to life. The Halle de La Machine thus becomes the living meeting point of two universes: that of François Delarozière and that of Jules Verne.
