Samuel Achache Jeanne Candel
La Chute de la maison
© © Louise Guillaume ©
Directed by Samuel Achache, and Jeanne Candel
Based on motifs by Edgar Allan Poe, Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann
With Margot Alexandre (alternately), Adrien Bromberger, Chloé Giraud, Louise Guillaume, Julie Hega, Antonin Tri Hoang (alternately), Florent Hubert (alternately), Jean Hostache, Hatice Özer, Vladimir Seguin, Maxence Tual, and Valentine Vittoz (alternately)
Musical direction, Florent Hubert
Choir leader, Nicolas Chesneau
Lighting, César Godefroy
Produced by Festival d’Automne à Paris ; La vie brève – Théâtre de l’Aquarium (Paris)
Coproduced by Adami
Restaging coproduced by Théâtre des Quartiers d’Ivry ; and Théâtre Garonne – scène européenne (Toulouse)
In association with La vie brève – Théâtre de l’Aquarium (Paris) ; and Festival d’Automne à Paris for performances at the Théâtre de l’Aquarium (Paris)
In association with Théâtre des Quartiers d’Ivry ; and Festival d’Automne à Paris for performances at Théâtre des Quartiers d’Ivry
First performed on the 3rd October 2017 at Atelier de Paris / CDCN, with Festival d’Automne à Paris and as part of the « Talents Adami Paroles d’acteurs » scheme.
The work of Samuel Achache and Jeanne Candel readily mixes literature and operatic forms, dramatic play and music, forming a common matter that they shape with humour, lightness of touch, and theatricality. With La Chute de la maison, created in 2017 as part of the “Talents Adami Paroles d’acteurs” scheme, they subtly weaved together a fantastical novel with lieders by Robert Schumann.
In a hospital at the start of the XXth century, a woman, pronounced dead due to injuries sustained while falling off a horse, wakes up in the morgue three days after being placed there. The medical staff, hesitating between a possible error on their behalf and a miracle, decide to keep her in for observation and act out before her the kingdom of the dead. This sets up a mise en abyme of dramatic representation itself, and the actors joyfully set about creating it via a rough and ready format, characterised by its absence of underlying narrative thread. The strange and captivating atmosphere, and its sung elements imbibed with deep-seated, plain and irremediable melancholy take over the space in a lasting way. The shadow of death hangs over the proceedings, but the actors, singers and musicians are alive and well and try to their utmost to take a stand in the face of the irrational. Each of them brings to the stage their own form of folly, adding to the collective madness, and the intimate fragility of what we, as members of the audience, see and hear invites us to an interior reverie.
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Running time : 2h