La Paranoïa

The sixth part of Rafael Spregelburd's Heptalogie, La Paranoïa is an unusual work in the contemporary theatre. A science fiction play that takes place between 5000 and 20,000 AD, offering its author total freedom to write a fable that plunges us into the core of theatre making. Imagination is therefore required, something the directors don't lack, to transmit on stage this writing that is anything but linear, going merrily from crime drama to metaphysical reflection, incorporating cinematographic projections into the theatre performance. Making of the multiplicity of actions the driving force of his play, Rafael Spregelburd proposes a funny journey inside the human brain. La Paranoïa tells the story of a small group of people summoned by powerful aliens, the Intelligences, to give them within 24 hours a quality work of fiction, an item they are crazy about and that only grows on Earth. If the group fails, humanity will be destroyed... This is the "opening pitch" of this extravagant saga, full of humour and nonsense. Élise Vigier and Marcial Di Fonzo Bo's troupe brilliantly takes up the challenge of inventing a fiction within a fiction, mixing acted and filmed scenes, creating live cinema with actors who multiply themselves to play all the roles, going from a telenovela to a film by David Lynch, leading at top speed this mad, rich and lively story, a genuine infernal machine assaulting our certainties. JFP

Rafael Spregelburd is Argentine, but his career has gone beyond the borders of his country. He was first a grant holder at the Théâtre Beckett in Barcelona, before moving temporarily to London, then to Hamburg, Berlin, Stuttgart and Munich, where he worked as an author and director, but also as a translator, actor and teacher. Since the 1990s, as a playwright, he has constantly conducted a formal exploration as fertile as it is theatrically efficient. A research whose most obvious outcome is certainly found in L'Heptalogie, a set of seven plays inspired by the seven capital sins of Hieronymus Bosch, that Rafael Spregelburd redefines as Lack of Inappetence, Modesty, Extravagance, Stupidity, Panic, Paranoia and Stubbornness. 

JFP

director Marcial Di Fonzo Bo, Élise Vigier
text Rafael Spregelburd
translation Marcial Di Fonzo Bo, Guillermo Pisani
dramaturgy Guillermo Pisani
sets and lighting Yves Bernard
sound Manu Léonard
costumes Pierre Canitrot
wigs and make up Cécile Kretschmar
images Bruno Geslin
images collaboration Romain Tanguy

with Rodolfo De Souza, Marcial Di Fonzo Bo, Frédérique Loliée, Pierre Maillet, Clément Sibony, Élise Vigier, Julien Villa

production Théâtre des Lucioles
coproduction Théâtre national de Chaillot (Paris), Nouvel Olympia Centre dramatique régional de Tours, Théâtre national de Bretagne (Rennes), Théâtre de Nîmes, Le Maillon Théâtre de Strasbourg Scène européenne, Théâtre de la Place (Liège)