 |
The Avignon Festival of performing arts
Conflict in focus
by Rosslyn Hyams
Article published on the 2009-07-08 Latest update 2009-07-10 14:15 TU
Scene from 'Littoral' by Wadji Mouawad, Avignon 2009
(Photo: Thibaut Baron)
The theme of the productions and debates in this year's Avignon Festival - the 63rd - is conflict, but with a special Middle Eastern edge, as the associate artistic director is Lebanese-Canadian, Wadji Mouawad. His own work has been appreciated by audiences inside France for several years. But as usual, the underlying issue is theatre itself.
Avignon's history as the City of the Popes some 800 years ago marries with its 63-year-old theatre festival (founded in 1947 by actor/director Jean Vilar) to come up with some pretty exciting programming.
The Festival programme in 2009 was put together along with Lebanese-Canadian director Wadji Mouawad who, while exchanging ideas with the Festival directors, asked whether the real question for this Festival was "how to recount the butchery of the 20th century".
So the performances that form the backbone of the programme this year, whether plays, or dance or video or different combinations of these, raise questions about war, conflict and destruction.
First up is La Guerre des fils de lumière contre les fils des ténèbres (The War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness) based on The Jewish War by the First Century Jewish Historian, Flavius Joseph, directed by Israel's Amos Gitai, who is better known for his feature films. It is showing at the Carrière Boulbon, a disused lime quarry outside of Avignon, from 7 July to 13 July (except 10 July). It stars Jeanne Moreau, who acted in the first Avignon Festival under Vilar.
Wajdi Mouawad himself directs his own orginal work, an 11-hour-long, three-part, marathon within the towering walls of the Pope's Palace called Littoral, Incendies, Forêts (Shoreline, Fires, Forests). These three belong to a series of four plays called, Le Sang des promesses (The Blood of Promises). They broach themes fundamental to Mouawad such as war, exile and identity and represent a quest for some kind of soothing balm to heal the suffering of the world.Swiss-German director Stefan Kaegi's work with his Rimini Protokoll company has become a favourite of the Avignon Festival. He continues to cross borders and to dig into scenes of ordinary lives, to show something extraordinary and captivating.
The Avignon Festival was something of a champion of the post-communist flourish of theatre from eastern Europe. Krzysztof Warlikowski, has been making the trek from Warsaw to Avignon reguarly in the past decade.
Assuming its role as the champion of theatrical experience, both for professionals and for the general public, the Avignon Festival also features modern classics, dance performances, play readings and debates on contemporary theatre experience and ideas. Theatre and film demonstrate their compatibility at the Utopia Art House Cinema in Avignon.
The Avignon Festival runs from 7 July to 29 July in Avignon, on the Rhone River in the south of France.
The Avignon 'Off'', the fringe theatre, begins on 8 July and ends on 31 July. Companies, bigger or smaller from the four corners of the earth, but mostly French, come to fight for audiences and recognition.
Despite noisy and colourful parades, their success often depends on how many people casually mention they loved the play while sipping a chilled glass of rosé on one of the city's many café terraces.
Some productions do manage to be snapped up for theatres in Paris, so there's always hope. Of special note, a children's theatre festival, Festival Theatr'enfants just outside the city walls has been running for almost 30 years. It's on from 8 July to 25 July.
See also the Villeneuve-en-Scène a festival of itinerant theatre catering for all ages, across the river, from 5 July to 24 July.
Last year
