Diphtong

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

"I grew up in Aubagne, opposite the Foreign Legion. "
Mon Képi Blanc is composed like a musical score and made up from interviews, and recorded conversations with képis blancs at the foreign legion headquarters in Aubagne.
The Legion’s music is something that has always appealed to me. Their songs provide a common ground for men who come from all over Europe, and they tell the story of its colonies. With their different backgrounds and different maternal languages, the legionnaires speak a mixed language, shared by everybody, a fragmented language, a language that speaks of a forgotten place and time, a ‘foreign’ french language, a new language whose structure –even in its composition and its breaths – produces a sonorous matter, a place where exile, migration, war, dissolution, abdication, loss, but also utopia and belief, all find representation... "

Sonia Chiambretto on Mon Képi Blanc

Mon Képi Blanc, EXCERPT

[I think]
Good house
The chief is completely pissed.

[Sweat]

An elderly chap
(a blanket around him) :

-I am the chief warrant officer Kurt
The company warrant officer
The noncommissioned officers’ boss
welcome to the company
come drink at the mess
close by you’ll find the CMB, the Company Military Brothel
5 girls inside
They’re airconditioned
They’re comfortable
They’re nice
WE have good laughs there.

[I think]
I’d been warned
A company of drunkards and weirdos.

[Sweat]

(At mess with the chief warrant officer)

Two Yugoslavian képi jam the beer tap with their fingers
Two Polish képis take a satchel from under the table

Shit [I think] unlucky

Oh! [I sweat] they’re going to cut my head off

[Sweat]

...............................................................

PRESS

"She (Sonia Chiambretto) has produced a text – or rather a long poem - called Mon Képi Blanc, drawn from her long familiarity with military life, and from meetings, confessions, in nearby bars,. Not exactly flattering virility or the national flag, Manuel Vallade plays out a hallucinatory monologue and interior struggle.
He is filmed live with a three quarter american shot, which serves to restrain him in two ways : his image (head and torso) appears on the screen and he is stuck in the interior of a large cube bound with red, resembling a bier. The actor, led by Hubert Colas, deals with everything, including the text’s typography, which presents all the ons in capital letters, like legiON. Power, distress, and music, are all united in Sonia Chiambretto’s startling text and in Manuel Vallade’s performance of it. "
René Solis, Libération, 5th October 2007

"Beware, this text is explosive. Sonia Chiambretto, whose startling and appealing works ‘Chto’ and ‘Petite randonnée’ continue to thrive, has put together ‘Mon Képi blanc’ from snippets of legionnaires’s true stories. Under the guidance of Hubert Colas, and Manuel Vallade’s delusory, delusive performance, ‘Mon Képi blanc’ has become a witty and acerbic gem. "
Denis Bonneville, La Marseillaise, 5th October 2007

Director, set design : Hubert COLAS
With: Manuel VALLADE / / Thierry RAYNAUD for the performances in Lieu Unique - Nantes, and Théâtre des Ateliers - Lyon
Lighting : Encaustic- Pascale Bongiovanni and Hubert Colas
Video : Patrick LAFFONT
Sound : Nicolas DICK
Production manager : Nicolas MARIE
Assistant director : Sophie NARDONE

Production : Diphtong Cie. With support from montévidéo
The writing of Mon Képi Blanc benefitted from collaboration with DMDTS/Minister of Culture

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

• from 31 march to 01 april 2010, Comédie de Caen, with Chto Interdit aux moins de 15 ans

• from 15 to 18 december 2009, Théâtre des Ateliers, Lyon, with Thierry Raynaud
• from 01 to 05 december 2009, Lieu Unique, Nantes, as part of the trilogy CHTO, with Thierry Raynaud
• from 05 to 20 november 2009, Théâtre de la Cité internationale, as part of the trilogy CHTO
• the 20 and 21 october 2009, L'Hippodrome, Douai, scène nationale
• from 24 to 26 july 2009, Festival d'Avignon, Chapelle des Pénitents blancs, 7:00 pm (two shows on saturday the 25th, on 3:00 pm and 7:00 pm)
• from 02 to 06 october 2007, Friche La Belle de Mai, Marseille, as part of the actOral.6, the international festival of comtemporary art and writing
• the 07 october 2005, montévidéo, Marseille, Study 1, staging, as part as actOral.4