Littoral, Scorched, Forests
First three parts of the quartet
"Le sang des promesses" (The Blood of Promises)
The Cour d'honneur will ring out with words of the epic, with sounds and images of a great odyssey which, from dusk to emerging dawn, will carry the spectators into the mazes of Wajdi Mouaward's world. In Littoral, when Wilfrid decides to go and bury, in his native land, the father that he did not know, but the organisation of whose funeral is incumbent on him, he goes without knowing it in search of the very foundation of his existence. In Scorched, it is on the tracks of a father they think is dead but whom they discover is alive, that Jeanne and Simon leave for the country of their deceased mother whose painful past is revealed in snatches as their trip unfolds. It is also by going back along the trail of his origins that Loup, the young heroine of Forests, haunted by an indescribable anguish, will be faced with the past of her ancestors. Three odysseys that take us to where the dead frequent the living in search of their identity, where the dead speak to their descendents, without fear or shame. Inserting the story into legend, it is through a dialogue with the gods, with the forces that go beyond us, that the author and director weaves the thread that forever links us with the promises we have kept and betrayed. In this way he establishes a kind of transmission. “The most wonderful stories,” he repeats, “are those that come from the shadows to burst out in the light of the stage, where victims, torturers and judges can talk, without any Manichaeism, about the eternal conflicts and dramas of humanity.” With this saga, it is war, exile, the search for identity, the quest for the father, the frustrations due to absence or death, the torments of a fragmented, betrayed, inconsolable childhood – in short, everything that constitutes the world's pain and the search for relief –, that is presented to us here in a burning and devouring manner. Littoral, Scorched, Forests: three adventures that, to the rhythm of the carnal, generous and vigorous writing of their author, take us into the meanderings of these modern tales that are so obviously incarnated in the actors' bodies that we, the spectators, are disturbed in the depths of our being. Without rejecting the references to the contemporary dramas that we experience every day, Wajdi Mouawad broadens his vision and ours, digging the groove of memory. The one that recalls and the one that imagines, to know how to stay alive in the midst of disaster. An eternal question asked to art in general and to theatre in particular. JFP
Distribution
Texts and direction: Wajdi Mouawad
Dramaturgy: Charlotte Farcet
Direction assistance: Alain Roy
Scenography: Emmanuel Clolus
Music direction : Michel F. Côté
Lighting: Martin Labrecque
Sound: Michel Maurer
Costumes: Isabelle Larivière
Make-up and hairdressing: Angelo Barsetti
Production: Anne Lorraine Vigouroux (France) Maryse Beauchesne (Québec)
Texts published by éditions Actes Sud-Papiers
with: Jean Alibert, Annick Bergeron, Véronique Côté, Gérald Gagnon, Tewfik Jallab,
Yannick Jaulin, Andrée Lachapelle ou Ginette Morin, Jocelyn Lagarrigue, Linda Laplante, Catherine Larochelle, Isabelle Leblanc, Patrick Le Mauff, Marie-France Marcotte, Bernard Meney, Mireille Naggar, Valeriy Pankov, Marie-Ève Perron, Lahcen Razzougui, Isabelle Roy, Emmanuel Schwartz, Guillaume Séverac-Schmitz, Richard Thériault
Production
Production de l'intégrale: Festival d'Avignon, Au Carré de l'Hypoténuse et Abé Carré Cé Carré
avec le soutien exceptionnel du Ministère de la Culture, des Communications et de la Condition féminine du Québec
avec le soutien du Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, du Ministère des Relations internationales du Québec,
du Service de Coopération et d'Action culturelle du Consulat général de France au Québec, du Conseil des Arts du Canada et de la Région Rhône-Alpes
en collaboration avec le Centre culturel canadien
production déléguée Espace Malraux Scène nationale de Chambéry et de la Savoie dont Wajdi Mouawad est artiste associé
le Festival d'Avignon reçoit le soutien de l'Adami pour la production
Production “Littoral”: Au Carré de l'Hypoténuse. production déléguée Espace Malraux Scène nationale de Chambéry et de la Savoie.
coproduction Théâtre français/Centre national des Arts-Ottawa, Abé Carré Cé Carré,
Théâtre Forum Meyrin et les fondations Edmond et Benjamin de Rothschild, Célestins Théâtre de Lyon, Théâtre 71 Scène nationale de Malakoff, Scène nationale Bayonne-Sud-Aquitain, Hexagone Scène nationale de Meylan, Le Grand T Scène conventionnée de Loire-Atlantique
avec la participation artistique du Jeune Théâtre National
Production “Incendies”: Abé Carré Cé Carré
coproduction Théâtre de Quat'Sous avec Théâtre Ô Parleur, Festival de Théâtre des Amériques (Montréal), Hexagone Scène nationale de Meylan, Le Dôme Théâtre d'Albertville Scène conventionnée, Théâtre Jean Lurçat Scène nationale d'Aubusson, Les Francophonies en Limousin, Le Théâtre 71 Scène nationale de Malakoff
Production “Forêts”: Au Carré de l'Hypoténuse et Abé Carré Cé Carré
production déléguée Espace Malraux Scène nationale de Chambéry et de la Savoie. coproduction le Fanal Scène nationale de Saint-Nazaire, Théâtre de la Manufacture Centre dramatique national de Nancy-Lorraine, Théâtre Jean Lurçat Scène nationale d'Aubusson, Hexagone Scène nationale de Meylan, les Francophonies en Limousin, Le Beau Monde ? compagnie Yannick Jaulin, Scène nationale de Petit-Quevilly Mont-Saint-Aignan, Le Grand T Scène conventionnée de Loire-Atlantique, le Théâtre du Trident (Québec), Espace GO (Montréal)
avec le soutien du Théâtre 71 Scène nationale de Malakoff, de la Région Rhône-Alpes, du Centre national du Livre, de la Ville de Nantes, de la Drac Pays de la Loire, de CulturesFrance et de la Drac Ile-de-France-Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication