Eugene Onegin

It seems that it serves no purpose to ask a Russian who the greatest poet is or what the most beautiful poem ever written is: it is a stupid question. André Markowicz, a Russian from Saint Petersburg like the hero Onegin, is convinced of it and has been translating Pushkin's verses since he was 17. Because nothing is emptier or lighter, nothing is more terrifying than this poem, which is not only a poem but a novel – and a novel about nothing, not only the nothing of the worldly life of a romantic hero: no, a novel that doesn't teach how to live, that has no “vision of the world”. A novel built on sound, on the voice, on the delicate play of a thousand intonations, all of whose meaning is being what it is and saying what it says, no more, no less. Jean-Yves Ruf, trained at the École du TNS, has joined forces with André Markowicz for this workshop-show created for Avignon, before being presented in October at the TNS, at the Moscow Art Theatre School and in Paris at La Maison de la poésie.

Directed by Julie Brochen, the École du TNS since its founding in 1954 has been the only higher school of drama connected to a national theatre. In the same class (or “group”) of students it trains actors, stage managers, stage designers, costume designers, directors and playwrights.

translation André Markowicz (Actes Sud)

Workshop of the group 40 (2nd year) of the École supérieure d'Art dramatique du Théâtre National de Strasbourg
directed by Jean-Yves Ruf

with Léon Bonnaffé, Laurène Brun, You Jin Choi, Kyra Crasnianschy, Jules Garreau, Thaïs Lamothe, Thomas Mardell, Céline Martin Sisteron, Sarah Pasquier, Romain Pierre, Bertrand Poncet, Alexandre Ruby, Eva Zink (students actors), Hélène Jourdan (students designers), Diane Guérin, Thomas Laigle (students stage manager)