Encounter with Stanislas Nordey

For Stanislas Nordey, creating in the Cour d'Honneur of the Popes' Palace, means sharing the theater he holds dear and has always defended. As defined by Pier Paolo Pasolini, this is "a text-based, poetic and speaking theater." When he accepted the invitation extended by Hortense Archambault and Vincent Baudriller, to be the associate artist at the 67th Festival d'Avignon along with Dieudonné Niangouna, the question of the choice of text was decisive. Par les villages, a dramatic poem by Peter Handke, came to mind "like a wave sweeping along everything in its path, hauling both the world, the family as well as hope in the arts along with it." The Austrian author weaves a world of poetry - based on the story of a reunion of two brothers and a sister inheriting the family house - in which he forthrightly evokes the miseries and the confusion of our contemporary society. Without imposing any specific truth, his text invites us to take a fresh look at the world, for according to Peter Handke, all dramatic work has to "make us aware of the new possibility of reality yet unconscious, a new possibility of seeing, talking, thinking and existing." Stanislas Nordey, both director and actor, will step into the shoes of one of the central characters of the play, Hans, who expresses "an ode to the humiliated and the offended", which he wants more than ever to be heard. As company in this artistic adventure, he gathered around him a team of true actors, such Emmanuelle Béart and Véronique Nordey, but also some newcomers to his universe.

 LP - November 2012