Writer-director Joël Pommerat works with the Compagnie Louis Brouillard which he founded in 1990. Together, they create the plays he writes from start to finish.
Pommerat believes that writing for the stage does not end with the first day of rehearsals, to the contrary, it continues with the work with the actors, as much as with work on the scenography, lighting and sound.
Often described as “personal theatre”, Joël Pommerat's theatre is also ‘ theatre of the real', a sort of theatre that is deeply involved in our time. It is pure, meticulous craftsmanship where accuracy of gesture responds to the aptness of the spoken words to create and maintain a permanent link between the stage and the hall.
Since 1990, their fifteen plays (including Des Suées, Pôles, Treize étroites têtes, Mon ami, Grâce à mes yeux and D'une seule main) have taken Joël Pommerat and his company down this path, developing their original and disciplined approach which episode after episode, constructs a theatre universe which is familiar and mysterious, woven from unforgettable images..
This is a family tale, a tale of a father and of children, of a patriarchal, big industrial boss, one of those classical tragedies. However, this tragedy is set in our world, the world of multinationals, of all-consuming communications, of violent human relations, of loneliness.
With every passing scene, each family member reveals the close ties, secrets, desires and frustrations of the family group. A brother comes back, sisters fight, a father gradually goes away, further and further into silence, and whose legacy is for the taking. Success, failure, love, unlove, treachery, complicity – all emanating from the family unit and which evolve amid shadow and light, words and silences.
Joël Pommerat's great talent lies in making these silences – these areas of darkness or chiaro-scuro which punctuate each scene – into intense moments during which the spectator can drift off into their own dreams. Nothing is gratuitous, every gesture and every word have been chosen and worked out with precision, enabling us to penetrate this strange universe where money rules, where power is omnipresent in all its forms but is never given its name. No lessons in morality here, just the appearance of a sharpened awareness of the world as it is. What we have instead is an exceptionally theatrical alchemy producing unforgettable images which fascinate us and remind us of our own reflections on humanness, an original work of disturbing force where the beauty of every image associates naturally with the power of words culminating in theatre that is both of our time and outside of it.
Jean-François Perrier
Distribution
texte et mise en scène : Joël Pommerat
avec : Saadia Bentaiëb, Agnès Berthon, Pierre-Yves Chapalain, Lionel Codino, Philippe Lehembre, Ruth Olaizola, Jean-Claude Perrin, Marie Piemontese
scénographie : Éric Soyer, Marguerite Bordat
suivi de la réalisation scénographique : Thomas Ramon
lumières : Éric Soyer
collaboration artistique et costumes : Marguerite Bordat
assistanat à la mise en scène : Laure Pierredon
assistanat costumes : Isabelle Deffin
implantation sonore et réalisation de l'écriture sonore : François Leymarie
recherche sonore : Solange Barrachina, Grégoire Leymarie, Bruno Hocquard
régie son : Grégoire Leymarie
régie lumières : Jean-Gabriel Valot
direction technique : Emmanuel Abate
régie plateau : Jean-Pierre Costanziello, Thomas Ramon
Production
Production : Compagnie Louis Brouillard
en coproduction avec : le Théâtre national de Strasbourg, le Centre dramatique national de Normandie - Comédie de Caen, le Théâtre Paris-Villette, le Théâtre Brétigny - scène conventionnée du Val d'Orge, La Ferme de Bel Ebat - Guyancourt, Arcadi - Action régionale pour la création artistique et la diffusion en Île-de-France
avec le soutien : de la Région Ile-de-France
texte publié : aux éditions Actes Sud-Papier