Points of no return [Quais de Seine]

Written and directed by Alexandra Badea, Quais de Seine is an immersion into three generations of lives broken by the weight of things left unsaid. A journalist goes looking for the history of her family, for an unknown heritage. Pieces of story start to appear... Her absent, uprooted father, her grandparents fighting for their choices, their ideas, and their mixed marriage... The political and the human intertwined. Onstage, space and time come together: past and present are face to face, gauge each other, and enter into a dialogue with testimonies, dreams, and fragments of utopia. Diving into the troubled waters of the massacre of Algerians on 17 October 1961 in Paris, the play explores personal history and collective memory. Because, as the young Romanian-born French director says: “Everything in life is political, even love (...). You love the same way you think about the world.” Points of no return questions our relationship to the world when the past isn't enough, and gives us hope for resilience.

Born in Romania, Alexandra Badea is a writer and director for theatre and cinema. She started studying drama in Bucharest before moving to Paris in 2003 and finishing her studies there. She writes her plays in French and has directed some of them herself. Quais de Seine is the second part of her Points of no return trilogy. She has also written a novel, Zone d'amour prioritaire (Priority Love Zone), which was adapted in 2013 for the Festival d'Avignon, as well as radio dramas and short films. She has received several awards for her work, in particular for her play Pulvérisés (Pulverised). In her work, she explores the personal and the universal, lending her voice to those we usually don't hear.

Points de non-retour [Quais de Seine] by Alexandra Badea is published by L'Arche éditeur.
 

With Amine Adjina, Alexandra Badea, Madalina Constantin, Kader Lassina Touré, Sophie Verbeeck
And with the voices of Patrick Azam and Corentin Koskas

Text and direction Alexandra Badea
Dramaturgy Charlotte Farcet
Stage design and costumes Velica Panduru
Ligths Sébastien Lemarchand assisted by Marco Benigno
Sound Rémi Billardon
Artistic collaboration Amélie Vignals assisted by Mélanie Nonnotte
Stage set construction Ioan Moldova

Production Hédéra Hélix, Anahi
Co-production La Colline Théâtre national, La Comédie de Béthune Centre dramatique national, Festival d'Avignon, Scènes du Jura Scène nationale, Théâtre du Beauvaisis Scène nationale de Beauvais, Scène nationale d'Aubusson
With the support of Ministère de la Culture Drac Hauts-de-France, Région Hauts-de-France, Spedidam
With the help of Atelier Tukuma Works for the stage set construction
In partnership with France Médias Monde