Laurent Brethome
Nicknamed “the jeep” at the Comédie de Saint-Étienne, where he began before assisting François Rancillac, Laurent Brethome is an all-terrain director. Proudly hyperactive, the 34-year-old has directed about thirty shows, moving from one genre to the next with the same energy and generosity.Georges Feydeay and Hanoch Levin both played an important part in his artistic development—he brought them together in Court Carnage (Short Carnage) in 2012—along with Copi, Jean Racine, Philippe Minyana or, more recently, Molière (Les Fourberies de Scapin). Every one of his creations is accompanied and fed by shorter shows, workshops, and encounters, so many opportunities to be as close as possible to a new audience, or one that has already been won over. Originally from Vendée, where his company Le Menteur volontaire organises a festival each summer, Laurent Brethome seems nonetheless to be from everywhere he goes, as an artist-in-residence or on tour. In the suburbs of Paris or the Jura mountains, he leads, with his many partners-in-crime, an artistic and militant experiment for a popular theatre which he defines, quoting Jean Dasté, as “playful, festive, and challenging.”
