Ariane Mnouchkine captures "moments of existence"
From December 2006 to April 2007, Ariane Mnouchkine, an emblematic figure in French theatre, and her Théâtre du Soleil company presented Les Éphémères [Ephemera] at the Cartoucherie in Vincennes, near Paris. This masterly show, the product of a year’s work based on the actors’ improvisations, showed the audience a selection of episodes lived, dreamed or imagined by the performers. Ordinary scenes of family life, bereavement and desertion, loves and hopes: those "moments that made us", according to Ariane Mnouchkine, parade before the audience on platforms mounted on castors pushed by two or three actors, who may later reappear in another sequence. The show, which comprises two performances each lasting three and a quarter hours, is described as an exploration of "the tangible of our lives" and plays on the inevitable resemblance between those who devised it and those who watch it.
This summer, the company is on tour in Greece and France (the Athens Festival from 22 June to 1 July 2007, then the Avignon Festival from 14 to 25 July), before flying off to South America (Argentina and Brazil), then Taiwan in Autumn 2007.
Stéphanie Secqueville
Journalist
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