Silvia Costa

« Comédie » de Samuel Beckett suivi de« Wry smile Dry sob » de Silvia Costa

Archive 2020
Theatre
1/6

Comédie
Stage design, direction and choreography, Silvia Costa
Text, Comédie (Play) by Samuel Beckett
With Clémentine Baert, Jonathan Genet, and Carine Goron
Wry smile dry sob
Stage design, direction, choreography and text, Silvia Costa
With Clémentine Baert, Clémence Boucon, Flora Gaudin, Jonathan Genet, Carine Goron, and Garance Silve
Musical composition, Nicola Ratti
Artistic collaboration, Rosabel Huguet Duenas
Costumes, Laura Dondoli
Dramaturgy, Stephanie Gräve
Produced by La Comédie de Valence, centre dramatique national Drôme-Ardèche ; and Théâtre Garonne – scène européenne (Toulouse) Coproduced by Les Spectacles vivants – Centre Pompidou (Paris) ; and Festival d’Automne à Paris
In association with Les Spectacles vivants – Centre Pompidou (Paris) ; and Festival d’Automne à Paris
With support from King’s Fountain
With support from Adami
With support from the L’éstba placement scheme funded by Région Nouvelle-Aquitaine
Silvia Costa is an associate artist at La Comédie de Valence, centre dramatique national Drôme-Ardèche.

Restaged in French especially for the occasion, the two-part piece by Silvia Costa articulates the performance of a drama by Samuel Beckett with its reinterpretation in a musical, visual and choreographic installation. In this no-exit "huis clos" play in which everything is repeated, comedy is confined to irony and smiling to sarcasm.

Silvia Costa brings to the stage Comédie by Samuel Beckett, the English-language version of which is Play, a piece in which the three dead protagonists ruminate on their vision of the love triangle which has united them. Stuck in a temporal loop, each of them relates their story purely from their own perspective, without any interaction with the others, enabling us to reflect upon this impossible ending and on the solitude to which it condemns them. The Italian artist distils the feeling felt by them “…not merely all over, but as if…never been”. This line taken from the start of the play expresses in an extremely concise manner the tragic nature of their condition. Did they make wise choices during their lifetimes? Does their disappearance free them from the tumults of their existence? In this desperate spiral of jealousy, unrequited love and betrayal, dwelling on thoughts is the only way to occupy the emptiness of time. In the second part, three dancers take over the space, as if they were the projections of their subconscious. They evolve in a more organic way as part within a choreographic and sound-based staging, designed in conjunction with Nicola Ratti. Both sensual and abstract, the musical composition accompanies this theatre of slowed-down gestures and actions. Centre stage, a tightly-woven, jumbled up mass of vintage furniture constitutes a form of domestic gridlock, the different elements of which are on the brink of collapsing. On the other hand, the costumes, a means of “deconstruction”, provide access to the bodies, or open windows on their inner selves. Just like the effect of the stage set, the trap closes in on the spectator, caught between laughter and tears.

In the same place

Centre Pompidou
septembersept 27 – 29

Mathilde Monnier
Territoires

Dance
Buy tickets

In Territoires, Mathilde Monnier will be taking over the galleries of the Centre Pompidou during the course of a weekend in order to bring us a piece that deals with memory and circulation, "a collection of gestures from her work over the past thirty years". In doing so, the choreographer sets up the possibility of playing out memory in the present, from now onwards, or by means of anticipation.

Centre Pompidou
octoberoct 2 - november – nov 2

Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Complete retrospective of films and videos

Visual arts Focus
Buy tickets

Apichatpong Weerasethakul presents the complete retrospective of his films at the Centre Pompidou. It consists of his eight feature films, thirty or so short (and rare) films, various collective works, and two feature films produced by him.

Centre Pompidou
octoberoct 2 - january – jan 2

Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Night Particles

Visual arts Focus
Buy tickets

The Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul is guest at the Festival d'Automne and Centre Pompidou. His exhibition, featuring around ten video installations, transforms the former solarium into a nocturnal space inhabited by biographical and architectural reminiscences.

Centre Pompidou
octoberoct 5 – 14

Apichatpong Weerasethakul
A Conversation with the Sun (VR), extended edition

Performance Focus

The Thai filmmaker's second foray into performance art, A Conversation with the Sun (VR), extended edition, presented in Paris in a new version enhanced by a third part, uses virtual reality to create the conditions for a collective dream.

Centre Pompidou
octoberoct 23 – 26
Points communs – Théâtre 95
novembernov 12 – 13

Ligia Lewis
Still Not Still

Dance
Buy tickets

In Still Not Still, choreographer Ligia Lewis pursues her exploration into the silences and shadows of history. In this piece, the performers play out a score over and over again, the burlesque dimension of which makes it all the more tragic.

Centre Pompidou
novembernov 27 – 30

Forced Entertainment
Signal to Noise

Theatre
Buy tickets

Over its forty years of existence, with Tim Etchells at the helm, the company has never stopped reinventing itself. And it continues to do so. Amidst an oscillating form of virtual reality, six performers find themselves deprived of their voices and their entire beings. The whole thing goes beyond all understanding... Welcome to this new world.

Centre Pompidou
decemberdec 13 – 22
Théâtre des Quartiers d'Ivry
januaryjan 22 – 26

Sébastien Kheroufi
Par les villages

Theatre
Buy tickets

Sébastien Kheroufi discovered Peter Handke's Par les villages at the onset of his artistic career. It evokes a writer's return to his native village. Amidst the twilight setting in which one universe declines in favour of another, the voices of the “offended and humiliated” break their silence.