Alain Françon is a stage director who is curious and faithful, curious about new writers and faithful to some old masters. Since 1972, he has staged more than fifty plays by Chekhov, Ibsen, Feydeau, Vinaver, O'Neill, etc. In 1992, he directed for the first time a work of Edward Bond, La Compagnie des Hommes (In the Company of Men). It was the start of a real affinity between the famous British writer and the French stage director. Françon's
determination made Bond's politically engaged theatre well-known in France, notably after Françon was appointed director of the Théâtre National de la Colline in Paris en 1997. The War Plays, Coffee, The Crime of the 21st Century and Have I None have all been staged in keeping with Bond's writing, all of them scalpel-sharp analyses of a world that is becoming dehumanised, of a world that could exist if we are not careful. With his \'gang' of regular actors, Alain Françon has made this reflection on the contemporary world \'classic', in the same way that he made the most established \'classics' by his favourite writers, contemporary.
At the Avignon Festival, Alain Françon presented Je songe au vieux soleil... based on works by William Faulkner and Mes souvenirs by Herculine Barbin in 1985, A Moon for the Misbegotten by Eugene O'Neill in 1987, Tir et Lir by Marie Redonnet in 1988, War Plays by Edward Bond in 1994 et Edward II by Christopher Marlowe in 1996.
Edward Bond was born in 1934 in Holloway, North London, into a working-class family. His first play The Pope's Wedding, was first performed in 1962 at The Royal Court Theatre and marked the start of his career as a playwright with now thirty plays to his credit. Among his plays are Saved, which created a scandal when it was first staged in 1965, the War Plays trilogy, In the Company of Men and Olly's Prison. Edward Bond is especially interested in dramas for young people, working with youngsters in workshops and writing plays specifically targeting younger audiences. He has directed some of his own plays and published his theories on drama. Considered as one of the great contemporary playwrights of the English language, he writes political theatre which seeks to highlight the contradictions of Western civilization and to warn his contemporaries of the excesses of authoritarianism which hang over them. Edward Bond's work was first performed at the Avignon Festival in 1970 when Georges Wilson directed Early Morning in the Courtyard of Honour at the Pope's Palace.
Si ce n'est toi (Have I None) is one of the shorter plays by Edward Bond. On 18th July 2077, a man rings at the Jams and Sara's apartment door saying that he is Sara's long lost brother and claims to be able to prove it. From that moment begins a family huis clos that the author calls a mixture of farce and \'other things'.
One of Bond's strengths is his capacity to move around in different dramatic writing styles, from tragedy to farce, to show us his idea of what the world will be like in 2077, and where we are headed if we do not remain alert. Will we ever know this world where \'the authorities' take our past from us, even our most secret memories, leaving us to live in an antiseptic, utilitarian universe just like Jams and Sara's apartment which contains nothing but a table and two chairs ?
This pedagogical drama, in the best sense of the term, sounds an alarm about the trend in our societies and in those who lead them, to tighten controls, which could eventually become absolute.
Jean-François Perrier
“Cinema, television, sport, pop music, all have a safety net. The theatre has no safety net.”
Distribution
texte français : Michel Vittoz
stage direction Alain Françon
avec : Luc-Antoine Diquéro, Dominique Valadié, Abbès Zahmani
dramaturgie : Michel Vittoz, Guillaume Lévêque
scénographie : Jacques Gabel
lumières : Joël Hourbeigt
univers sonore : Gabriel Scotti
Production
Production : Théâtre National de la Colline
texte français publié : par l'Arche éditeur
