From theatre to opera Frédéric Fisbach uses the theatre as a place to ask sensitive questions which depend on the relationship between the actor and the spectator. In his stage productions, (Agrippina by Haendel, 2003), whether modern or contemporary texts such as Les Paravents (The WindBreakers) (2002) by Genet, L'Annonce faite à Marie (The Annunciation to Mary) by Claudel (1996), Tokyo Notes (2000) by Oriza Hirata, or the great classics such as Bérénice by Racine (2001) co-directed with choreographer Bernardo Montet, or even L'Illusion Comique (The Comical Illusion) (2004) by Corneille, he tries to invent new ways of acting and representing that correspond to different artistic languages, other ways of composing music and dance, and other cultures, notably Japan's. Frédéric Fisbach will be the associate artist for the Avignon Festival in 2007.
At the Avignon Festival, Frédéric Fisbach presented Bérénice in 2001 and L'Illusion Comique in 2004.
First of all, listen, to the musicality of the language, then comes the presence and playing of the actor. They are all serving a polyphonic script written by Oriza Hirata, a well-known contemporary Japanese theatre personality, whose play, Citizens of Seoul was written in 1991 and is one of his most important works.
Sticking closely to the Japanese writer's text, Fisbach chisels out the everyday little gestures that are part of the fading conversations of the Citizens of Seoul. It is about sharing a moment from the past, like looking through a photo album, asking questions about the present through the past, the nearby through the distant. With a ‘pointilliste' procedure, advancing by suggestion, this play tells of the life of a well-off Japanese family living in Korea in 1909, just before the country was annexed by Japan. Against a background of war and colonialization, the words flow, anodyne or funny, crazy or distant, touching with cutting strokes,on the most serious of subjects such as culture and identity. This production shows the text's rapport with History and with facing up to the way others perceive us. Private lives, family, collective memory, Frédéric Fisbach brings out these different dimensions in a delicate partition which is reminiscent of Chekhov's family gatherings or those of the Japanese film director Ozu. Some twenty characters played by Japanese actors wearing period costumes perform in a decor similar to No theatre's or perhaps a Japanese tea room. IF
Distribution
stage direction Frédéric Fisbach
avec : Takahiro Ariyama, Hiromi Asai, Kayo Ise, Yumiko Ise, Maki Isonishi, Yoji Izumi, Reina Kakudate, Ruriko Kariya, Katsuhiro Konagaya, Yusuke Koshiishi, Keiji Manako, Yutaka Oda, Akira Otaka, Yoshi Sako, Yoshika Sekine, Naomi Wakai
lumières : Daniel Lévy
scénographe : Aïko Harima
costumes : Olga Karpinsky
assistante à la mise en scène et dramaturgie : Sophie-Pulchérie Gadmer
surtitrage, traduction : de Rosemarie Makino-Fayolle adapté par Sophie-Pulchérie Gadmer et Megumi Ishii
Production
Coproduction : Setagaya Public Theatre (Tokyo), Studio-théâtre de Vitry
avec le soutien : du gouvernement japonais, de la Fondation Chiiki Sozo (Tokyo), de l'AFAA et du Service culturel de l'Ambassade de France au Japon
avec le soutien : de l'Onda pour les surtitre