Diphtong

Chto Interdit aux moins de 15 ans is the first section of the CHTO trilogy (which includes Chto Interdit aux moins de 15 ans, Mon Képi Blanc and 12 Sœurs slovaques).

It was a poetic description of a warscene in Agamemnon that inspired me to write this story. It was a text I read to a young Chechnyan girl I met in a French language centre in Marseille. She’s a new arrival from Chechnya, Europe. She’s 18. She’s fleeing the war. So I ask her to describe her travels, I take down her story.

Experiences of language
She tells her story in the language of the host country, France. She doesn’t speak much of the language yet.
Some months later, she tells me the same story (of the journey). She speaks more of the new language now. How does the language change or play with her memories ?
She tells me the same story in herown language (Chenchnyan). When she speaks into the microphone, she knows I don’t understand- to what extent can she convey the story, if at all ?

Sonia Chiambretto on Chto Interdit aux moins de 15 ans

Chto, EXCERPT

[When we arrive at St. Petersbourg
my mother, and my grandmother, my sister, my niece and me, Sveta, we are captured by the police

The soldiers
Like that
On the platform

They took my mother, and my grandmother, my sister, my niece and me, Sveta

They [the Russian police] said :
Rah you are Chechnyans
Come with us
We check
We look your papers
Who are you

Like that

It is cold here
There is a lot of snow our legs sink in right up to the knees
They make us go in
We all went in
My mother grandmother my sister my niece me Sveta the Russian Police
like that.

They said [the R police] :
Oh
Why don’t you look at me
What
You’ve seen a ghost or something
What

They drank
They smoked
They are like crazy
Like that

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PRESS

"Claire Delaporte embodies the brutality of the text through her static, almost wounded body that she uncovers and veils again, just as with the words she speaks, carefully avoiding conjunctions as though they were bullets being shot just above her head. She conjures up a strong sense of the physical chaos within : but it’s not something that’s ever really clear. The connection slowly sinks in as if giving us time to gain necessary confidence in others and triumph over our fears... "

"Hubert Colas’ theatre produces an experience that plays with the space that it opens but also closes, an effect that allows us to accommodate the broken words of Sonia Chiambretto amidst all the coming and going ("all that never leaves me, all that, in me, in my head, all that comes back to me"). The stage direction of the connection is intriguing as it runs in parallel with the text, frees Claire and reinforces our empathy. So when talking about her "nostalgia for Chechnya", the invisible thread that stretches out between us and the actress, hangs out the poet’s words. Sublime."
Pascal Bély, Festivalier.net, Tadorne, 6 October 2008

"Pursuing his exploration of Sonia Chiambretto’s work, Hubert Colas casts the wonderous Claire Delaporte into a frozen enclosure. The forceful effects we find in Képi – where ‘I’ becomes ‘we’ – are recalled here in an utterly broken language. "I saved myself, I am safe" she barks after abruptly repeating "I don’t want to, I can not forget. " For an hour, with the lighting of Pascale Bongiovanni, the projection of Patrick Laffont, and music by Nicolas Dick, as well as the closing song by Nonie Prince Billu ‘I see a darkness’, Colas, Chaimbretto and Delaporte deliver a breathtaking plea for brotherhood between victims of exile. "
Denis Bonneville, La Marseillaise, 5th October 2008

Direction, set design : Hubert COLAS
With : Claire DELAPORTE
Lighting : Encaustic - Pascale BONGIOVANNI and Hubert COLAS
Video : Patrick LAFFONT
Sound : Nicolas DICK
Production manager : Nicolas MARIE
Assistant director : Sophie NARDONE
Set : Olivier ACHEZ / Matelas : RELAX FACTORY

Production : Diphtong Cie. With support from montévidéo
Co-production : Théâtre National de Marseille - La Criée, Théâtre des Salins, scène nationale de Martigues.

Chto Interdit aux moins de 15 ans followed by Mon Képi blanc and 12 Sœurs slovaques is published with Actes Sud-Papiers.
Represented by L'Arche Editeur, theatre agent.

.........................................
(Translated by Hannah Jones)

calendar

• the 27 and 28 april 2010, La Passerelle, scène nationale de Gap
• the 31 march 2010, Comédie de Caen, with Mon Képi Blanc
• from 01 to 05 december 2009, Lieu Unique, Nantes, as part of the trilogy CHTO
• from 05 to 20 november 2009, Théâtre de la Cité internationale, as part of the trilogy CHTO
• the 16 july 2009, Festival Contre-Courant, Ile de la Barthelasse, Avignon, 10:00 pm
• the 02 october 2008, Théâtre National de Marseille-La Criée, as part of actOral.7, the international festival of comtemporary art and writing
• the 23 september 2005, Les Correspondances à Manosque, Study 1, staging
• the 08 february 2005, montévidéo, Marseille, Study 1, staging, as part as actOral.4