One beautiful night in 1941, Pier Paolo Pasolini was deeply moved by the spectacle of fireflies that glittered in the darkness, while war raged around them. The Italian poet saw the symbol of joy and desire in it that could continue to illuminate “friends and lovers”, at the very heart of the disaster of fascism. Thirty-four years later, he published in the newspaper Corriere della Sera a political and controversial article that took note of The Disappearance of the Fireflies, a phenomenon that dated back to the 1960s. In his view, their extinction due to pollution was the metaphor of a humanity eaten away at by a pollution of minds, by what Michel Leiris calls the “merdonity” (shittiness) of modernity. It is on the tracks of Pasolini, as Georges Didi-Huberman followed them in Survival of the Fireflies, that Nicolas Truong ponders, in his turn, “the vivacity of critical thought” today. As much a theatre lover as a philosophy buff, he looks for what more a “philosophical theatre” can have to say other than philosophers' words laid down on the pages of a book. With a consummate art of staging, he makes the texts resonate between each other, establishes dialogues between the thinkers as well as between schools of thought that question modernity. Catastrophists, deconstructionists, rationalists or democrats, all of them will have a say in the debate. From Pasolini to Jacques Rancière, by way of Foucault, Giorgio Agamben or Jaime Semprun, their concepts will be heard through the voices of two actor-transmitters, Judith Henry and Nicolas Bouchaud, who will permit “thought emotions” to burst forth on stage. Not without humour or lightness, they will make the fireflies that can still enchant our nights glitter, if we know how to open our eyes at the right time and if we agree, even a little, to open our ears. With this Firefly Project, philosophy will become material for producing acting and taking pleasure in reflecting together. Material, in short, to do theatre. JFP
Distribution
conception and direction Nicolas Truong
scenography Élise Capdenat and Pia de Compiègne
artistic collaboration Nicolas Bouchaud, Judith Henry
lighting Philippe Berthomé
images Blandine Armand
with Nicolas Bouchaud, Judith Henry, Nicolas Truong
Production
production Le Monfort
coproduction Festival d'Avignon, Théâtre National de Bretagne, Compagnie Le Théâtre des idées
avec l'aide de la SACD pour le Sujet à Vif en 2012
Trought its support, the Adami helps the Festival d'Avignon to get involved is coproduction.