The last night of the world

What if we did away with night? What if, at last, our planet worked 24/7, thanks to a newly-discovered and revolutionary pill? Starting from this idea, director and actor Fabrice Murgia and writer Laurent Gaudé lead us into a story that looks like a TV show, in which the main character investigates his wife’s disappearance. In a world kept awake by neoliberalism, he faces the steamrolling power of consumer society and of weakened governments, but also a resistance embodied by a strange child oracle, or the Deep Night Movement… The fruit of an intense collaboration with Laurent Gaudé, influenced by the context of the pandemic, Fabrice Murgia’s new show supplements documentary material with the power of fiction. Under the starry sky of the Cloître des Célestins, Fabrice Murgia plays with the techniques of theatre and with our senses.

A playwright (of about fifteen plays), novelist (The Scortas’ Sun, Prix Goncourt 2004), poet, and traveller, Laurent Gaudé has worked with many renowned directors and actors since 1997. His text We, Europe, Feast of the Peoples, directed by Roland Auzet, was performed at the Festival d’Avignon in 2019, in the courtyard of the Lycée Saint-Joseph.

July 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 and 13 at 10 p.m. at the Cloître des Célestins
Additional dates on July 17, 18, 19 and 20 at 10 p.m. at the Cloître des Carmes (without the english surtitles)

With Fabrice Murgia, Nancy Nkusi

Text Laurent Gaudé
Direction Fabrice Murgia
Assistant direction Véronique Leroy
Stage design Vincent Lemaire
Video creation Giacinto Caponio assisted by Dimitri Petrovi
Lights Emily Brassier
Sound Brecht Beuselinck
English translation Sue Rose

Production Compagnie Artara
Co-production Théâtre national Wallonie-Bruxelles, Théâtre de Namur, Mars – Mons arts de la scène, Théâtre de Liège, Central – La Louvière, Théâtres en Dracénie (Draguignan), Théâtre L’Aire Libre (Rennes), Scène nationale d’Albi, Centre dramatique national de Madrid (Spain), Riksteatern (Sweden)
With the support of Shelterprod, taxshelter.be, ING Tax-shelter of the Belgian federal government
With the help of Frans Brood Productions