Théâtre National de Bretagne
Direction Arthur Nauzyciel

FR EN

SPECTACLES

16 nov
— 19 nov 2022

SUR LA VOIE ROYALE

ELFRIEDE JELINEK / LUDOVIC LAGARDE

Théâtre

Festival TNB

Coproduction

Actor Christèle Tual transforms before our eyes as she unleashes a polemic castigating the failings of Western democracies. 

Subjected to the constant attentions of an onstage make-up artist and costumer, Christèle Tual undergoes a series of transformations in a performance that variously summons Freud, Oedipus, Miss Piggy, and the philosopher Heidegger. But at the centre of this vitriolic text by the Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek (winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize for Literature) is the figure of Donald Trump – never named, yet ever present. Jelinek began composing her tirade on the night of his election. Where are we going, what have we done, how could we let this happen? And how is it that democratically elected men become dictators? This transformation is captured in a furious yet lucid text, directed by Ludovic Lagarde.

A stage director and the head of the Comédie de Reims until 2018, Ludovic Lagarde is here reunited with his accomplice Christèle Tual, who trained at the Conservatoire de Rennes and the École du Théâtre National de Strasbourg. Lagarde has previously created two pieces while in residency at TNB – La Collection in 2019 and Quai ouest in 2021 – and will work with the eleventh class of the TNB Drama School within the project ‘Une saison à l'École’.