La Tragédie du roi Richard II

What an odd history is that of Richard Plantagenet, crowned eighth king of England when he was 10, really assuming the prerogatives of his responsibility at 15, renouncing the throne at 32, before dying in prison, the following year, in 1400. What a fascinating tragedy, what an astonishing fiction is that written by Shakespeare in 1595, based on the life of this monarch with his many contradictions, loved and hated, strong and weak, who asserted himself as both man and king, and not only as a sovereign of divine right. A martyr king for some, a weak, capricious, indecisive, unjust king for others: every adjective was used to characterise this royal body who brought his kingdom with him in his fall. Shakespeare's play bears witness to the end of a world on whose rubble anarchy and barbarism reigned. In this is the whole contradiction of the concept of power incarnated by Richard II, which was based on the fear of disorder and anarchy and which lead however to more chaos and violence. At the invitation of the director Jean-Baptiste Sastre, Denis Podalydès will take on, in the Cour d'honneur of the Palais des papes, a venue contemporary with Richard II's reign, the role of this "non-king king" as he called himself, this king whose sovereignty was sickened by an exercise of power peopled by illusions. The Tragedy of King Richard II relates his trajectory, but also that, symmetrical but despite everything opposite, of Henry Bolingbroke, the future Henry IV. Both of them faced death in a combat whose principal stakes were the quest for power, a combat that led each of them to a common pain. The writer Frédéric Boyer has chosen a direct, edgy language that gives an account of the richness of Shakespearean speech excluding any romanticism. A choice that echoes Jean-Baptiste's passion for words and literature as the presence on the stage of the authors Jean Echenoz and Pierre Michon attests. This project will offer us their common vision of this Shakespearean poem that still haunts our hearts today. JFP

director Jean-Baptiste Sastre
translation Frédéric Boyer
scenography with Sarkis
lighting André Diot
sound André Serré
costumes Domenika Kaesdorf
video Benoît Simon
assistant director Stefano Lagun
light systeme Barthélémy Robino
sound engineer Ircam/Markus Noisternig
scientific counsellors Ircam for the WFS (Wave Field Synthesis) Olivier Warusfel, Joseph Sanson
technique and production Festival d'Avignon
sets and costumes were realized in the studios of the Festival d'Avignon

with Axel Bogousslavsky, Frédéric Boyer, Cécile Braud, Jean-Charles Clichet, Florence Delay de l'Académie Française, Jérôme Derre, Vincent Dissez, Bénédicte Guilbert, Yvain Juillard, Alexandre Pallu, Denis Podalydès de la Comédie-Française, Anne-Catherine Regniers, Nathalie Richard, Bruno Sermonne 

production Festival d'Avignon
coproduction France Télévisions, Les Gémeaux-Sceaux Scène nationale, Centre national de Création et de Diffusion culturelles de Châteauvallon dans le cadre d'une résidence de création, compagnie Aï, Théâtre de Nîmes, Le Phénix Scène nationale Valenciennes, Théâtre de la Place (Liège), Ircam-Centre Pompidou
avec la participation artistique du Jeune Théâtre national, de l'École nationale supérieure d\'Art dramatique de Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon, du Centre des Arts scéniques de la Communauté française de Belgique
avec le soutien de la Région Île-France, du Théâtre de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Scène nationale, du CENTQUATRE Établissement artistique de la Ville de Paris
avec l'aide de MMA et de SCOR

Pour La Tragédie du roi Richard II de William Shakespeare, l'Ircam a mis à la disposition du metteur en scène Jean-Baptiste Sastre un système de diffusion sonore inédit, la WFS - Wave Field Synthesis - qui permet de contrôler les sources sonores dans l'espace. Couplée au système de diffusion conventionnel de la Cour d'honneur, la WFS est utilisée pour le renfort des voix en exploitant la possibilité de co-localiser l'amplification de chacune des voix avec les acteurs.

Le Festival d'Avignon reçoit le soutien de l'Adami pour la production.