Louis, the prodigal son and elder brother, returns to his family after several years of absence and abandon. One year later, he will be dead. He knows.He arrives in this “sort of town” with a person he decribes as “an old friend” and a bouquet of flowers. He has come to tell them that he will die soon. A few of the dead come close to them and comment on the reunion of this forty-year-old child with his family which is torn between enthusiasm and bitterness. In 1994, Jean-Luc Lagarce wrote a final love song, a family portrait where the father and the son's lover, both already deceased, lend fraternal support to each other, while the brothers who are still alive continue to tear each other apart. The ghosts observe, intervene, arrange for those whose days are numbered to reconcile with each other, and laugh at them fighting. Familiar with works from Ibsen to García Lorca, 41 year-old director Gintaras Varnas, discovered the world of the French author, read Le Pays Lointain from cover to cover without stopping and decided there and then to stage this work. It is the first time Varnas is directing a play in France.Eleven actors fill the broad space of the Church of the Célestins which is defined by about ten metallic blue beds in a row, with railway gravel for mattresses. The décor could be a station platform or a dance floor, or the living room of a family home or a court of justice. The space becomes an incessant ballet of the regrets, failures, ordinary trials, mourning and happiness of which existence is made. There's no distance, no indulgence in the ardour with which the actors embrace Lagarce's work. They give shape to its clashes and outpourings and lift the sublime swan song to the heights of a resounding hymn to life.
Distribution
stage direction Gintaras Varnas
Cast :Saulius Balandis, Gytis Ivanauskas, Eimutis Kvosciauskas, Goda Piktyte, Birute Raubaite, Sigitas Sidlauskas, Daiva Stubraite, Dainius Svobonas, Aurelija Tamulyte, Robertas Vaidotas, Ricardas Vitkaitis
Lituanien translation :Akvile Melkunaite
Set design :Andris Freibergs
Costumes:Juozas Statkevicius
Music: Vidmantas Bartulis
Production
Coproduction :ministère de la Culture lituanien, Théâtre d'État académique de Kaunas, Festival Action de la nouvelle dramaturgie
Avec le concours :du Centre culturel français en Lituanie
Dans le cadre de :THEOREM (association soutenue par le programme Culture 2000 de l'Union européenne)
Avec le soutien de :l'Onda pour les surtitres
Texte français publié par :les Solitaires intempestifs