Philippe Quesne
La Mélancolie des dragons
© La Mélancolie des dragons, Philippe Quesne © Martin Argyroglo ©
© La Mélancolie des dragons, Philippe Quesne © Martin Argyroglo ©
© La Mélancolie des dragons, Philippe Quesne © Martin Argyroglo ©
Concept, direction and set design, Philippe Quesne
Performers, Isabelle Angotti, Rodolphe Auté, Cyril Gomez-Mathieu, Jean-Charles Dumay, Sébastien Jacobs, Victor Lenoble, Émilien Tessier, Gaëtan Vourc'h
Produced by Vivarium Studio
Coproduced by Wiener Festwochen (Vienna); HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin); La rose des vents - scène nationale de Lille Métropole à Villeneuve-d'Ascq; Centre drama-tique national de Besançon; La Ménagerie de verre (Paris); Le Forum scène conventionnée de Blanc-Mesnil; Le Carré des Jalles; Festival Perspectives (Sarrebruck)
With the support of Région Île-de-France, Parc de la Villette, Centre National du Théâtre
First performed in May 2008 at the Wiener Festwochen (Austria)
Production of the revival (2015) Nanterre-Amandiers, CDN
Les Spectacles vivants - Centre Pompidou (Paris) and the Festival d'Automne à Paris are co-producing this performance.
In La Mélancolie des dragons, Philippe Quesne brings to the stage anti-heroes that are graced with disarming tenderness. In doing so, he treats audiences to a piece in which the different elements that bind theatrical representation together are dismantled little by little. The discourse on theatre it gives rise to is as funny as it is delicate.
Stood next to their broken down vehicle in a snowy landscape, a group of hairy hard-rockers describe to Isabelle, a passer-by, and their only guest, what their ideal amusement park would look like. Their inventions, as dazzling as their offbeat, are the gateway into a world full of wonder. Beneath the simple premise of this show, created in 2008 and which has toured all over the world, lies a deep questioning of art. Theatrical effect, as raw as it is ridiculous, is the basis for Philippe Quesne's gentle brand of poetry, and the extra dose of madness he injects into it provides the launch pad for reality. The modest experiments of these wandering knights are not there to impress those watching from the gallery. On the contrary, their purpose is to surround fragile and temporary works with a benevolent community. Steering clear of any excess of purity or idealism, this founding piece is tinged by a numbed form of anxiety and resonates with the state of a world that these anti-heroes do not always understand even if they master its technologies. This is theatre which celebrates the inventiveness and practices of gentle dreamers, who are capable of building worlds from scratch.
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