Dans la mesure de l’impossible was conceived based on interviews with humanitarian workers. This show is an expression of both a desire to tell a story and a personal conception of theatrical representation…
For each play, I start with something simple and complex at the same time: the narration of a story that isn’t mine. However, I write from my experience as an actor. It consists of a way to “add” something to what is being told. I collected a series of testimonies from humanitarian workers for Dans la mesure de l’impossible. What I want to do is to tell a story with a meta-theatrical dimension. This term often has an elitist, post-dramatic dimension. Let’s add some nuance: theatre is by nature meta-theatrical, with the physical presence of a human assembly made up of spectators and artists. With theatre, artifice is always in sight. I see it as a continuation of this invisible contract between spectators and artists. I’m not trying to make theatre that would take you elsewhere, that would try to erase the reality of the theatrical moment. The purpose of theatre isn’t to pretend that there’s no theatre. It’s about bringing people together and, through the power of words, to do the same with the bodies and imagination of the spectators, so as to allow for a different experience. In Dans la mesure de l’impossible, while we try to tell a story, a poetic labyrinth appears as soon as the actors start playing the roles of humanitarian workers. This labyrinth is fertile ground for actors; it generates questions and allows them to experience a measure of freedom in relation to an original story. It’s a form of transmission. We won’t be the last to do this. Like everyone else, we’re just passing through, the ephemeral storytellers of our time.
Is a theatrical performance a form of democratic exercise?
It might not always be the case, but mine are! “Human assembly” is an expression I use daily when I’m rehearsing with actors. I tell them: “Don’t imagine that you’re in the very place where the story takes place, nor are you standing in the middle of a set: above all, you are facing people.” There’s something of the agora in any theatrical performance. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in his letter to D’Alembert, confides that in spite of his reservations about theatre, it has an undeniable quality: it is a civic celebration. Theatre allows participation in a work of art, with a playful and unpredictable aspect specific to the performance. If I had to get a tattoo on my body, it would say, “civic celebration.”
In Dans la mesure de l’impossible, humanitarian workers refuse to be seen as heroes. Isn’t there in your theatre a desire to return the human to an original dimension?
It is important for theatre to “clean up” social and historical hierarchies. Just like a university professor and a factory worker set aside their education and professions when they meet over a beer to discuss a football match… or, to be more “vilaresque”, when they sit side by side in the Cour d’honneur of the Festival d’Avignon to watch the same show. Theatre as a democratic parenthesis interests me as much as creating stories on a stage. I approached the humanitarian workers in Dans la mesure de l’impossible as I would real-life heroes. The more I talked with them, the more my admiration grew—along with my critical thinking. They have their complexities, their contradictions, their flaws. I like the idea that characters are close to us, that their greatness does not frighten us.
The experiences and confidences of those humanitarian workers in Dans la mesure de l’impossible are revealed little by little. As if you were trying to coax out words initially hidden behind layers of protection…
What I’m most interested in with those stories based on interviews, is how they tell us about humanity. The “proximity” of a theatrical performance intensifies this feeling. Which doesn’t mean that there’s no mystery involved. Before he speaks his first words, the actor looks no different from the audience. Then come the words, and a “shared imagination”. An actor only has to say good evening or something and, little by little, bodies, space, and light begin to bring out this shared imagination. It’s uncontrollable: everyone interprets it in their own way and creates something collective that wasn’t there before. Many plays impose a positive, easy-to-digest construction. If I can be seduced by this type of approach, it isn’t mine. I prefer to start with next to nothing and to build with the audience. We must be close to them from the beginning, even if we are different because we are being watched. I make sure not to impose aesthetics or codes; they are built during the show itself. This allows for presences on stage, characters, a performance in a space of normality. There’s no lack of richness, humanity, or depth.
You want something to arise outside of a classic, ritualised approach…
There’s an exercise I regularly ask the actors to try: start as if it’s not theatre, but just people talking and, at some point, because they’re there, make us realise we’re at the theatre. That we’ve “slipped” into theatre effortlessly. The beginning of each show is the key to this process. So, yes, how long can we pretend while knowing that it’s theatre? The most enjoyable feedback I can receive from spectators comes from this experience when they admit to resisting, then recognise that, without quite knowing how, they found themselves in a theatrical performance. It’s one of the nicest compliments I can receive.
Dans la mesure de l’impossible plays on the poles of duty and sacrifice. How do you see those two poles?
This show is about duty, but a chosen duty. There is no social imposition due to tradition. For these humanitarian workers, who were interviewed for hundreds of hours, this is more of a transgression, a choice against circumstances, refusing to be lawyers or doctors, for example. The humanitarian gesture is synonymous with a profound sacrifice of one’s personal life, well-being, even one’s mental health. Dans la mesure de l’impossible speaks of intimate negotiations towards the world.
Finally, can we talk about the cancellation in June of Krystian Lupa’s Les Émigrants, and the reasons that led to the programming of Dans la mesure de l’impossible?
Following the cancellation in June of the creation of Krystian Lupa's Les Émigrants at the Comédie de Genève, we tried to find a way to present this show at the Festival d’Avignon. We started a conversation with Krystian Lupa, our partner theatres, and the production team in order to find a framework that would be peaceful and respectful for all parties involved. After six days of discussion, we had to face the fact that logistical, financial, and scheduling conditions were not met. Such a cancellation without replacement would have had a real financial impact on the Festival d’Avignon. But what show could replace it? Dans la mesure de l’impossible allowed us to involve La Comédie de Genève again, which was its producing venue, and which would also suffer financially from the cancellation of Krystian Lupa's show. We had to act quickly so as not to make this cancellation more painful than it already was, even if we will keep a scar from not being able to present this work. After some research and numerous discussions, I came to the conclusion, as director of the Festival d’Avignon, that presenting an artist or a company as a last-minute choice was not ideal. It did not correspond with our initial programming choice and would be seen as a second choice, which would be unfair. My responsibility was therefore to find another solution. Since taking up my position I have said that my artistic work should serve the Festival d’Avignon rather than vice versa. I now have an opportunity to prove this during this first edition by sharing one of my shows, a show in which I strongly believe. It has taken on new significance since its creation in 2022. The beginning of the tour coincided with war breaking out in Ukraine. Dans la mesure de l’impossible is no longer a show about something "far away," but about something very close indeed. When humanitarian workers say that the world is divided between what is possible and impossible, and that those two aspects can switch places at any time, then we can understand how one region previously considered part of what is possible has now become part of the impossible. Similarly, the tragedies in the Mediterranean keep bringing us back to elements of the show...
Interview conducted by Marc Blanchet in October 2022 for the Scène nationale du Sud Aquitain and in June 2023 for the Festival d’Avignon and translated into English by Gaël Schmidt-Cléach