Des femmes Les Trachiniennes, Antigone, Electre

From Sophocles' unquestionably enormous body of work – over a hundred plays written over 50 years – only seven tragedies have come down to us, irreplaceable accounts on what the theatre was 500 years before the birth of Christ. It is this ensemble of conserved traces that Wajdi Mouawad wishes to present, in the longer term in their entirety, by surrounding himself with a team of creators who will undertake this adventure with him until 2015. Wajdi Mouawad chose a presentation of themes, rather then a chronological performance of the plays, and first became interested in those focused on women, before imagining a Heroes cycle, to end with a cycle on old age and death, The Dying. In 2011, for the Festival d'Avignon and under the spellbinding sky of the Carrière de Boulbon, the time has therefore come to let the voices of the great heroines that have resonated for nearly 30 centuries in the Mediterranean basin be heard, since the Greeks battled in Troy, since the cities were formed as political entities, since the gods intervened in men's lives. Three women for three combats: Antigone faces male political power, Electra faces a terrible family heritage and Deianeira faces the pain of a disappointed love. Three women united by the same tragic destiny, three beings in a world that, although still impregnated with Homer's magic, painfully experiences the end of its heroes. Three women forced to live in excess and madness, in contradiction with the rules and principles of their period, combatants almost in spite of themselves, through duty or necessity. Three solitudes that wait, that hope or that despair, and finally have the revelation of a path that inexorably ends in death. To have these Greek voices make themselves heard in French, Wajdi Mouawad asked the poet Robert Davreu to translate all of Sophocles' plays, without trying to modernize them at any cost, so that the spectator can perceive the distance that separates him from these tragedies, which are above all the expression of a world in which the community, unlike the period in which we live, was the be all and end all of human existence. It is this community that the chorus will represent, a chorus whose words will be sung on a feverish rock music, especially composed for this trilogy. The first leg of a journey in the many twists and turns of what remains for us of a work that, even today, each time that we come cross it, questions us and makes us grow. 

After Aeschylus, but before Euripides, Sophocles (496-406 BC) was the author of over a hundred plays, only seven of which have come down to us over the centuries. The subjects of all of them were events from the mythical, epic and historical depths of ancient Greece. Throughout his work, Sophocles had tragedy evolve, notably by adding a third actor and reducing the chorus' part, in this way limiting the comments on the action. He also endowed the characters with more psychology, imagined more direct confrontation between them and especially had the gods disappear from the stage, only letting them express themselves through oracles and prophecies, thus making their thoughts almost impenetrable for humans racked by torments. In translating Sophocles, the poet Robert Davreu did not try to modernize these texts at any cost, to keep the distance that exists between them and us, but stressed lyricism, while resolutely placing these tragedies under the sign of blood.

JFP

director  Wajdi Mouawad
translation Robert Davreu
director assistant Alain Roy
artistic advice François Ismert
scenography Emmanuel Clolus
music composers Bertrand Cantat, Bernard Falaise, Pascal Humbert, Alexander MacSween
light Éric Champoux
sound Michel Maurer
costumes Isabelle Larivière
make up and hairstyle Angelo Barsetti

with Olivier Constant, Samuël Côté, Sylvie Drapeau, Bernard Falaise, Charlotte Farcet, Raoul Fernandez, Pascal Humbert, Patrick Le Mauff, Sara Llorca, Alexander MacSween, Véronique Nordey,

Marie-Ève Perron

production Au Carré de l'Hypoténuse (France), Abé Carré Cé Carré (Québec)
coproduction Festival d'Avignon, Théâtre français du Centre national des Arts (Ottawa), Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers Centre dramatique national, Célestins Théâtre de Lyon, Théâtres départementaux de la Réunion, Mons 2015 Capitale européenne de la Culture, Théâtre royal de Namur, Le Manège Mons Centre dramatique, Le Grand T Scène conventionnée Loire-Atlantique (Nantes), Comédie de Genève Centre dramatique, Maison de la Culture de Bourges Scène nationale, Festival GREC de Barcelone, Festival d'Athènes-Épidaure
avec le soutien de l'Espace Malraux Scène nationale de Chambéry et de la Savoie, du Théâtre 71 Scène nationale de Malakoff, du Théâtre du Nouveau Monde (Montréal), du Ministère de la Culture des Communications et de la Condition féminine du Québec, du Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, du Ministère des Relations internationales du Québec, du Fonds franco-québécois de coopération décentralisée et du Service de Coopération et d'Action culturelle du Consulat général de France à Québec, de Ysarca S.L Arts Promotion et de la Fondation BNP-Paribas dans le cadre du Réseau Kadmos
avec la participation du Théâtre national de Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées et de la Délégation générale du Québec à Paris
Un projet du réseau Kadmos.
Par son soutien, l'Adami aide le Festival d'Avignon à s'engager sur des coproductions.