THE DEVILS
Conception, stage design and direction Michel Schweizer
Creation
13, 14, 15 march 2019
Théâtre de l’Oiseau-Mouche dans le cadre du Festival Le Grand Bain – Le Gymnase CDCN de Roubaix
When I started the production with the seven actors, I had a strong feeling: I needed to meet them without a preconceived idea about what the form or what the final contents would be, and also not to force myself to use a work process already experienced in my many past collaborations. I only knew that I would commit to highlight the personalities and professional expertise while eluding the expectations they could generate… an intentional way to reduce the comfort and situation of the audience member.
I invited them to talk about the world, about their role, based on their sensitive abilities to notice what, in their social life, make them be or have to be among other things. Ultimately, it’s about locating the provisions of the world to give them a good life…
The self-actualization process adapted to their differences, didn’t force anything making sure to locate and learn the limits of each one of them, to understand and include the specificity of the rehearsal times.
While writing and creating the show I followed the human topography, there was nothing to expect, just letting happen what life wanted to express.
The result is an incisive, quirky, ironic speech uttered by singular beings in a confrontation that forces the audience member to accept the high intensity of the experience and the uneasiness created by their intimate relationship to the other.
Therefore, no fiction to counteract what life shows in it most brutal form. We face a sample of human beings identifiable by the part the play onstage and by the passion that drives them, the one about being the sensitive mirror of what sometimes lacks to our moral integrity: the necessary feeling of the need of the other.
In this period of dehumanization when the character of our coexistence seems a bit preoccupied, the encounter with the DEVILS holds the will bring some comforting, happy and welcomed virtue. Here the production reflects the world, the need to preserve the values of our human nature to accept the differences that enrich the coexistence of our earthly lives.
A diabolical experience that will thus shake anyone that shares it, like an ephemeral, temporary and valuable time of salvation.
A show by La Coma and Compagnie L’Oiseau-Mouche
With Jonathan Allart Marie-Claire Alpérine Jérôme Chaudière Dolorès Dallaire Thierry Dupont Florence Decourcelle et Frédéric Foulon
Artistic assistant Cécile Broqua
Scenography Éric Blosse / Michel Schweizer
Light design Éric Blosse
Sound design Nicolas Barillot
Vocal coach Dalila Khatir
Conception et training Marionnette Bérangère Vantusso
Puppet Einat Landais
Stage manager Jeff Yvenou
Assistant Caroline Decloitre
Thanks to Johann Daunoy, Justine Olivereau,
Gwendal Wolf
Production 2019 Compagnie L’Oiseau-Mouche
Coproducers LA COMA, Le Gymnase | CDCN Roubaix dans le cadre du festival Le Grand Bain, La Villette – Paris, Les 2 Scènes, scène nationale de Besançon, Le Bateau Feu, scène nationale Dunkerque, Théâtre d’Arles, scène conventionnée art et création – nouvelles écritures, Théâtre Molière-Sète, scène nationale archipel de Thau, Le TANDEM, scène nationale Arras-Douai, MA scène nationale – Pays de Montbéliard et Le Phénix, scène nationale Valenciennes.
With the support of CDN de Normandie-Rouen, Festival Art et Déchirure, Théâtre de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, scène nationale, Centre Culturel André Malraux – scène nationale de Vandoeuvre et de la Maison de la Culture d’Amiens.
Photo credit Frédéric Desmesure