Bernard Noël's "first words" are also his last. They are thus caught in a movement where the end and the beginning are intertwined. A man and a woman speak, they know each other through their words and they share the death of an Other, a friend. This exchange, always more excessive, takes hold of the gestures, the skin, the perceptions, invades the whole space of the meeting. The play is written in the form of a dialogue composed of a single block, with neither paragraph nor chapter, so that the two protagonists end up merging in a metaphorical way in the use of the first person plural, forming a chorus: "we, the living, can constantly confront the image we have of each other with the original".
BERNARD NOËL
His first book of poetry, Extraits du corps, appeared in 1958. Bernard Noël waited nine years before publishing his second book, La Face de silence (1967). Initially published under a pseudonym (Urbain d'Orlhac) by Jérôme Martineau in 1969, then in 1971 (this time under his real name) by Jean-Jacques Pauvert, Le Château de Cène earned him a lawsuit in 1973 for insulting public decency. Following this trial, Noël wrote in 1975 a text entitled L'Outrage aux mots. Poet, writer, essayist, art critic, his friendship with painters and his taste for painting led him to collaborate in the creation of many artists' books and, more recently, to illustrate some of them himself.
INTENTION NOTE
"He" and "She" speak of the death of the "Other". These are their first words together, the ones that arise just after the death of a loved one. We learn from these words. We seize through flashes, the ineffable. Imbued with a flagrant physicality, this text takes us through different states, from a breathless speed to a feeling of exhaustion, of relaxation...
In an infinite movement between the beginning and an end, language and gestures tell the poetry of a life.
Two actors, a musician and a visual artist take hold of this text for a common breath. There are 4 voices speaking simultaneously, the He, the She, the Other and the Ineffable. The scenography is minimal, playing on strong physical sensations (sudden cold, bright or ghostly light, melting of a block of ice...). The double bass is the sound counterpoint of the word, it gives it flesh, alternately alive or putrid. The light is dust, it slides on our bodies and reactivates the original big bang or absorbs us in its cosmic vortex.
What is the content of these words, if not the one that our bodies, swept by time, express? Through the text and the images produced, a hybrid compound is created where life, death and desire merge.
DISTRIBUTION
Flore Audebeau : actor
Félicie Bazelaire : double bass
David Chiesa : double bass
Daniel Strugeon : actor
Jean-Luc Terrade : director
CO-PRODUCTION and CO-REALIZATION
Les Marches de l'Été
© photo : Pierre Planchenault