Est-ce que tu dors ?

It took nine years for Andrea Mantegna to decorate the walls and the ceiling of a small room in the ducal palace of Mantua. Incorrectly called “the wedding chamber”, whereas the scene is probably that of a private office with a bed, this marvellous place, for which the Italian Renaissance painter let his imagination run free, was visited several times by John and Katya Berger. Fascinated by this atypical work, they started a correspondence on its subject. These letters and text messages have now become dialogues, through re-composition, rewriting or redistribution of the subjects exchanged. Taken in charge by their authors on stage, they are material to recount the beauty of Mantegna's paintings, but also the strength of an atypical human relationship and the grace of a questioning on one's viewpoint. No scholarly lecture, no didacticism, to place within the public's reach a work that each spectator must interpret individually. Just an open and generous conversation, enlivened by a curiosity that seems limitless and shows a deep desire for sharing. A reading-performance, as a proposal for a relationship: to art, to the world, to time, to oblivion but especially perhaps, of father to daughter, and of daughter to father. JFP

with John Berger, Katya Berger
and the complicity of Simon McBurney

production Festival d'Avignon
with the support of the Palazzo Ducale of Mantua, the Superintendence for the Historical Patrimony, Artistic and Etnoantropologico heritage for the provinces of Mantua, Brescia and Cremona, of Festivaletteratura 2010 Teatro Bibiena (Mantua), of the Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne and of the British Council