Diphtong

(One of a trilogy of three works : Whole blue Sky, Face to the Wall and Fewer Emergencies, and in French, Ciel bleu ciel, Face au mur and Tout va mieux)

This has no starting point. There are beings. They are, quite simply, there.
Are they waiting or do they know something we don’t ?
Something they are going to reveal to us, or teach us, because they are there, before us, not quite characters. Four actors are needed the author tells us, 1 2 3 4. They come before us with their simple but striking words.
We are faced with a reflection of the world. Everything they say, everything they describe is right before our eyes, a living account of all that surrounds us in Western society. It appears calm...
And then, close by, or perhaps right here with us, everything turns upside-down. The dreadful centre of tranquillity, the mundane, comes and hits us hard, or hits the innocent, our loved ones.
Images come back to us, we remember acts committed in public places, a townhall, a classroom like in Face to the Wall, where fear and violence invade this everyday classroom in a plague of terror.
It’s here, in our neighbourhoods, in our streets, in our homes, that we could at any moment become victims of terror.

‘Nothing shelters us’ could serve as a second title for these three short pieces. Leaving the theatre, we are conscious of the fact that while we were sitting comfortably in our seats, people might have been harmed, perhaps killed, only a few steps away.

These three texts mix lightness, humour and brutal violence, reminding us that the comfort so many of us enjoy, makes us forget another aspect of the world altogether. Violence can spring up at any moment, expressing a persistant will to thrive, at whatever cost. Expressing perhaps the horror, the hope of a regained identity.

If these acts aren’t justified, then equally, nothing justifies the way our modern societies fail to seek out new ways of reaching a greater sense of humanity.

Hubert COLAS

PRESS

"Hubert Colas has a taste for contemporary authors captivated by disaster. Having directed works from Christine Angot and Sarah Kane, he has now settled on Martin Crimp, who is emerging from the British scene with a flourish, revealing himself as the descendant of Pinter, or even Edward Bond.(...) Hubert Colas has always depicted individuals gripped by an uncontrollable violence. He is unique in his knack of stylising the raw drive of private and social brutality in the Western world. The three short texts staged here, all emanate from the same sort of present-day savagery. "
Joshka Schidlow, Télérama

"As the surgeon of irony, Crimp opens wounds and carries out a strange procedure of transplantation. (...) At the last Festival d’Avignon, Colas presented a reading of three pieces. Today, he manages to come up with a perfect stage equivalent of Crimp’s terrifying language. His sea of balloons is in fact a lava flow. "
René Solis, Libération

"The strength in Colas’ direction is in his way of placing Crimp’s trilogy into a kind of seeming immobility whilst weaving an incredible evolution of violence into it. "
Tadorne, le blog du spectacle vivant

Direction, set design : Hubert COLAS
With : Pierre LANEYRIE, Isabelle MOUCHARD, Thierry RAYNAUD, Frédéric SCHULZ-RICHARD, Manuel VALLADE
Lighting : ENCAUSTIC - Pascale Bongiovanni et Hubert Colas
Video : Patrick LAFFONT
Sound : Zidane Boussouf
Assistant director: Sophie NARDONE
Set design: Arié Van EGMOND

Production : Diphtong Cie, Théâtre du Gymnase, Festival d'Avignon, Festival PERSPECTIVES in Sarrebruck (Germany)
With support from montévidéo

Translated into French by Elisabeth ANGEL-PEREZ.
Represented by L'Arche Editeur, a theatrical agency.

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

calendar

• from 24 to 26 march 2010, Lieu Unique, Nantes
• the 16 march 2010, Espaces Pluriels, Pau
• the 10 and 11 march 2010, Bonlieu, scène nationale d'Annecy