The setting is a nondescript one, an apartment of no particular interest. By the end of this hour-long show, however, it has become highly charged with emotion.
Under Caroline Guiela Nguyen’s direction, three life stories unfurl there. A few steps away from the audience, each of them leaves their own imprint on the four walls around them. First of all, we meet a policeman who has dedicated his whole life to his work. After a blunder of some sort, he has been suspended, and expelled from the police station. He is just coming to terms with it. Next, we encounter a woman who has decided to end her marriage. She explains why to her aunt, on the telephone. She is aged 55 years old and speaks Vietnamese. The third account is reinvented each time: in each town or city, the director invites an amateur actor or actress onstage, and to take part in the production. In Valence, it was the turn of Marcel, a retired painter and decorator of pied noir origin. From the window, he used to watch the children outside playing, murmuring a few words in Arabic at the same time. In Princeton, we met Kenny, an Afro-American campus head electrician, and choir member. He insisted on never giving his age… Each face, and each story turns the playing space from an anonymous one into an inhabited one. “Our interest always lies at the most intimate level”, concludes Caroline Guiela Nguyen. “It is these tiny, minute details which enable us to build up a common narrative, with which to share our wounds.”
Text Caroline Guiela Nguyen and the whole artistic team
with Luc Bataïni, Madeline James, Alexandre Michel or Dan Artus and a non professional comedian
Direction, scenography, lighting Caroline Guiela Nguyen
Sound Antoine Richard
dramaturgy Jérémie Scheidler
Costumes Caroline Guiela Nguyen and Dominique Fournier
production La Comédie de Valence – CDN Drôme-Ardèche
Photos Jean-Louis Fernandez
Tour 19/20
04 to 05 October— La Comédie, CDN de Reims
19 to 22 March—FIND, Schaubühne, Berlin