About the work
The stage version is based on Georges Perec's comic novella “Quel petit vélo à guidon chromé au fond de la cour ?”, published in Paris in 1966, shortly after Perec had won the Prix Renaudot for his debut “Things”. In German the text is available in Eugen Helmlé's translation as “Was für ein kleines Moped mit verchromter Lenkstange steht dort im Hof?”. The premiere of the stage version, titled “Weil der Frieden Zucker ist!”, is scheduled for 7 November 2026 at the Deutsches SchauSpielHaus Hamburg (directed by Anita Vulesica).
Plot
Paris at the time of the Algerian War: every evening, Sergeant Henri Pollak rides his moped from the barracks in Vincennes to see his friends. When a young soldier, whose name keeps changing throughout the story, is to be sent to Algeria, the friends decide to save him from deployment. Their schemes range from a broken arm to feigned madness and grow ever more outlandish.
Cultural significance
Perec tells the story as an exuberant language game full of exaggerated rhetorical figures and shifting registers, inspired by Raymond Queneau; it ends with an index of the stylistic devices used. Beneath its comic surface the text deals with draft resistance and pacifism. On publication it drew little notice in the press and has remained the least discussed of Perec's novels, but it has been staged several times by smaller theatre companies.