AFTER / BEFORE

Pascal Rambert was 22 when he published his first play script - Désirs et Les Lits, which he also directed. From then on, he has alternated between writing and directing his own work (Météorologies, Les Parisiens, John & Mary, De Mes Propres Mains, Race) and that written by those he considers essential (William Shakespeare, Jan Fabre, Jean Audureau, Andy Warhol combined with Descartes). He has travelled widely and worked in particular in the United States and Japan. Those experiences convinced him that French theatre could become richer with experiences abroad. With L'Épopée de Gilgamesh in 2000, he realised a desire to bring together actors from different countries to produce a performance that would be a step away from traditional play forms. He continued this work with Asservissement Sexuel Volontaire, and then with Paradis (un temps à déplier) at the Théâtre National de la Colline, before coming back to a more intimate style of theatre with Le Début de l'A. which he wrote and directed at the Studio-Théâtre of the Comédie-Française in 2005. He has recently begun working on cinema, dance and opera projects, creating Philoméla in Oporto and with a planned opera, Pan at the Opéra du Rhin. At the Avignon Festival, Pascal Rambert presented Les Parisiens in 1989 and Gilgamesh in 2000.


Rather than theatre that presents the state of the world, that is an observation, Pascal Rambert prefers a type of theatre that offers new suggestions for a different world. That's the starting point for AFTER/BEFORE, which started out as meetings with so many new people in the countries where this director has worked since 2003 - more than five hundred interviews on film shot in Tokyo, London, New York, Oporto, Paris, Annecy, Avignon etc. Anonymous people in the street or old friends, scientists, artists, children, all answered two simple questions, "if a major catastrophe occurred, a new flood for example, what would you take with you from the world before into the world after? And what would you most definitely not take from the world before into the world after ?". The answers constitute the material for the text which, re-worked or not, is used by the ten actor-performers who have been working with Pascal Rambert for several years, and who are joined by ten non-actors aged between 70 and 85 years-old who he met in Annecy. This confrontation between young and old bodies demands a different attitude to "the passage of time" and the representation of the body on stage. Using all his skills, writing, dance, plastic art installation, cinema, and the diversity and richness of the cultures he has encountered, Pascal Rambert tries to bring out the many ideas that could oppose the dominant, and ageing, way of thinking. At the same time he tries to invent a new way of presenting reality on stage, in the theatre, without being a prisoner of the type of realism that weakens imagination. Permanently researching and coming forward with ideas, he asks his performers to use the same method to - collectively and without constraint – conjure up a world gone-by, a present world and perhaps a world in the future where beauty is no longer ideal perfection but a rush of accidents, fractures, pleasures and desires experienced in real time addressing the willing audience that is indispensable for this artistic adventure.

Realisation, movements, furnitures, images Pascal Rambert
Cast Clémentine Baert, Georges Bilbille, Evelyne Bilbille-Brasseur, David Bobée, Louis Chamoux, Gilles Groppo, Grégory Guilbert, Antonin Ménard, Alexandre Meyer, Kate Moran, Gilberte Muguet, Cécile Musitelli, Albert Patin, Noëlle Pialhoux, Jacques Richard, Annie Rossat, Jacques Rossat, Jacques Silberstein, Sophie Sire, Vincent Thomasset, Virginie Vaillant
Music Alexandre Meyer
Vocal training Dalila Kathir
Lighting Pierre Leblanc
Images cut Thomas Marchand
Les parures sont réalisées : avec du papier crépon supérieur Canson®

Production Side One Posthume Théâtre (pascal rambert)
En Coproduction avec Bonlieu- Scène nationale d'Annecy, le Festival d'Avignon, la Comédie de Caen- Centre dramatique national de Normandie
Avec le soutien de la région Ile-de-France
Pascal Rambert est “artiste associé” : à Bonlieu-Scène nationale d'Annecy