Minetti, a play written in homage to a great German actor of the same name, resonates like a music partition where each word is a note, each phrase an arpeggio. You have to be a virtuoso to obtain that sound exactly and Claudia Stavisky, the director only wanted one actor, Michel Bouquet. Who else indeed could slip in so close to the heart of an actor that you can almost hear beating, with the sweep of the pen of one of his finest observers, Thomas Bernhard, major author of the 20th Century. Within the chiaroscuro style of this exceptional actor, Claudia Stavisky, has made her own mark with a flowing partition which deploys from shadow into light, gives itself from death to light. Minetti, an old actor who has not performed for thirty years out of absolute and excessive rigour, left everything behind to go to Ostend in Belgium, to meet a director who has offered him the role of King Lear in Shakespeare' s play of the same name. In this story of the old Minetti, forgotten by the limelight and the boards, whose audience is reduced to his own reflection in the mirror, Claudia Stavisky reads an exemplary tale of deliverance. It is the tale of a man who again becomes what he has never ceased, in fact, to be: an actor. And it' s not important if Minetti will never again wear the mask made for him by the painter Ensor to become once more King Lear. He returns to the stage, for one night only, there, before a rough and ready audience in a hotel salon in Ostend. It is an insane and magical night that Thomas Bernhard offers to the theatre, in a rare gesture of love. And that Michel Bouquet, intense, surrounded by strange presences, transforms into a moment of grace.
Distribution
translation Claude Porcell
stage direction Claudia Stavisky
cast: Michel Bouquet, Juliette Carré, Christian Taponard, Paul Predki,
Sara Martins, Joyce Merkle, Jean-Luc Baronnier, Yvon Bernard,
Aimé Descotes, Michel Frémont
set design : Christian Fenouillat
lighting : Marie Nicolas
sound: Michel Maurer
costumes :Claire Risterucci
masks :Cécile Kretschmar
assistant director :Marjorie Evesque
assistant set design : Catherine Floriet
assistant lighting : Maurice Fouilhé
assistante costumes : Isabelle Paloyan
Production
Coproduction :Célestins-Théâtre de Lyon, Théâtre de la Ville-Paris, Maison de la Culture de Nevers et de la Nièvre, Centre dramatique régional de Tours
Texte publié aux éditions de l'Arche