Sagazan and Poix’s fatherlessness according to Chekhov

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From some of the characters of the ” Platonov by Chekhov, Lorraine Sagazan’s troupe offers a sample of society who left their youth more or less long ago to enter the adult world. Between the ideals dreamed of in the past and the present there is an abyss, the one into which have sunk the values ​​in which everyone believed.

Of the fifteen protagonists in Chekhov, there are eight left. Like every year, they meet, invited by Anna, in the house which was family but will soon be sold to pay the debts. Everyone returns from their horizon. Everyone rejoices. But everyone knows that usually doesn’t go very well.

Lorraine Sagazan’s idea is to keep the initial postulate of the Russian playwright, namely: the disenchantment of rather failed lives. She wants to add a link that would connect the original piece to the present and would integrate an autobiographical part of the actors, in particular that of the relationship with the father of all the performers. She will also begin each performance herself by evoking her own parent. And all of them, during their stage performance, will reveal at some point the nature of their relationship with their father.

Thus will mark the intention of the director to mix theatrical fiction with the raw reality of those who embody it. Just as she compels the public present to participate by playing in quadrifrontality and by constantly leading her actors to address the spectators, to take them to task, to ask them to answer questions, to even take action with them. . Hence a mixture, not always subtle but challenging, of plausibility, verisimilitude, truth.

Each member of this distribution therefore explains their feelings about their father and, without it being an explanation, lets each listener interpret the potential consequences on the behavior of the fictional character they are in the process of figure. It appears very quickly that all the members of this family find themselves in a position of instability in the middle of their existence.

And Platonov will enjoy a malicious pleasure in provoking the assembly, in raising dissatisfaction, in reviving resentment, in accumulating humiliation. To the point of revealing his own dismay. Except that, even more so than with Chekhov, this unhealthy and life-saving, violent and revealing mix reveals how much the moral heritage of parents with offspring from the Glorious Thirties has disintegrated over the years until it ends in the complete slump of democracies, dream models confronted with the thirst for possession rather than the elixir of being.

The performance begins like a comedy alert. We laugh a lot there. Sometimes with a hint of bad conscience because this humor can hurt. But the verbal jousting is brilliant and the energy they diffuse pervades the actors invested in their role. The faults and the individual lacks mark the deficits of ideals, of spiritualism.

The further the performance progresses, the more tragic it becomes. The convivial table at the beginning becomes the image of an inexorable chaos. Lost illusions plague behavior and words without the possibility of a vaccine or redemption. The finding is established. It’s up to us to ask ourselves the real questions in an attempt to find even a tentative solution. Because this performance, despite some minimal lengths, thanks to the vocal and physical work of the actors and the dynamism of the staging, carries with it an invigorating lucidity beyond the appearances that would lead either to suicide or murder, or to the victory of the one who has the money and takes with him who resigns himself.

Duration 2h25

On tour :

February 23-26, 2022 Theater du Nord L’Idéal Tourcoing

May 11-12, 2022 Firmin Gémier Theater La Piscine Châtenay-Malabry

Adaptation: Lorraine de Sagazan, Guillaume Poix (freely adapted from the play Platonov by Anton Chekhov)

Design, direction: Lorraine de Sagazan

With Lucrèce Carmignac (Anna), Romain Cottard (Paul), Charlie Fabert (Sergueï), Nina Meurisse (Sophie), Antonin Meyer-Esquerré (Platonov), Chloé Oliveres (Sacha), Mathieu Perotto (Ossip), Benjamin Tholozan (Nicolas) .

Lights: Claire Gondrexon

Sound design: Lucas Lelièvre

General management: Kourou

Scenographic space: Marc Lainé, Anouk Maugein

Costumes: Suzanne Devaux

Lighting manager: Paul Robin

Sound manager: Camille Vitté

Administration, production, distribution, press relations: AlterMachine – Camille Hakim Hashemi, Marine Mussillon, Carole Willemot

Set construction: MC93 La Brèche workshops

Co-production: LA Breche; Normandy CDN (Rouen); Dijon-Bourgogne Theater; The Nights of Fourvière; MC93 – House of Culture (Seine-Saint-Denis); The Phoenix (Valenciennes); The Theater (Châtillon); TU-Nantes

Creation residencies: CDN de Normandie (Rouen); Bastille Theater (Paris); TU (Nantes); MC93 (Bobigny); Nights of Fourvière (Lyon)

Support: Ministry of Culture and the Ile-de-France Region; Tile of the Temple – Home Studio

Aid: SPEDIDAM and the artistic participation of the Jeune Théâtre National.

Phot © Pascal Victor