Straight out of the earliest mythologies, an ambiguous figure of mischief as much as a crafty evildoer, a small uncontrollable being, the imp is ageless. He symbolizes, according to modern psychoanalysis, the cursed part of one's personality that is called the inner child. However, his origins, tinged with medieval paganism, stem from a time when man had not yet clearly defined the concept of nothingness and death was just a hypothetical place peopled with angels of different natures, some demonic, other celestial. A third category, nevertheless emerged from the period of theorization of purgatory: the undecided angel. Autonomous, supporting neither God nor Lucifer, its status went from the penitent deceased to the fairy-tale character. A kind of representation, at the same time primitive, "pleasant" and sophisticated, of the inexplicable. In Uncle Gourdin, we are presented with a clan of imps who have temporarily decided to live in a cave that looks more like a hovel in a heritage monument. The whole community is busy, each of them having the feeling of being useful, attentive and benevolent, in a dreadful-marvellous infra-world. Only one thing sends them to sleep: stories. The stories of Claudel, Shakespeare, Genet... But they see their routine totally upset when one of them discovers death. The imps then begin to make plays, knowing that theatre only really starts when you find yourself with a corpse on your hands. They allow themselves to play everything, interpret everything in their own way, whatever way pleases them, shattering good taste, conventions and traditions. Thrilled by their own game, they even quarrel about the different "theatre options" possible. Sophie Perez and Xavier Boussiron look for a way to make theatre appear where it is not expected and to tirelessly question it. Building with great rigour a constant and brilliant deconstruction of performance codes, they circulate through the most classic forms and writings to break them up and attempt to create another theatre practice. Always looking for an immediate connection with the public, sensitive to an art that does not refuse itself anything, preferring extravagance to bombast, the Zerep company asserts its influences, from operetta to Pina Bausch, from Gregorian chant to free jazz, from popular cinema to Plato's cave. The imps will therefore bustle about without sparing themselves to invent their joyously insolent and parodic burlesque theatre. A theatre that lays claim to scathing humour as "the only way to stay alive." JFP
Distribution
conception, direction and scenography Sophie Perez, Xavier Boussiron
music Xavier Boussiron
lighting Fabrice Combier
sound Félix Perdreau
costumes Sophie Perez, Corine Petitpierre
image Laurent Friquet
with Marie-Pierre Brébant, Gilles Gaston-Dreyfus, Françoise Klein, Sophie Lenoir, Stéphane Roger, Marlène Saldana
Production
production Compagnie du Zerep
coproduction Festival d'Avignon, Théâtre du Rond-Point (Paris), Nouveau Théâtre d'Angers, Centre national de Création et de Diffusion culturelles-Châteauvallon, Le Manège Mons Centre dramatique, Domaine départemental de Chamarande
avec le soutien de la Région Île-de-France, des Subsistances (Lyon) et du Théâtre de Gennevilliers
Par son soutien, l'Adami aide le Festival d'Avignon à s'engager sur des coproductions.