Jours de joie

[ Time for Joy ]
by Arne Lygre
direction and stage design by Stéphane Braunschweig



duration 2h20

20 April - 5 May 2024

Berthier 17e

 with Virginie Colemyn, Cécile Coustillac, Alexandre Pallu, Pierric Plathier, Lamya Regragui Muzio, Chloé Réjon, Grégoire Tachnakian, Jean-Philippe Vidal

Stéphane Braunschweig continues his artistic journey with an author that inspires him by the richness of his imagination as well as by his stage poetry. In this play, first created in Oslo in 2021, a family gathers, two adult children and their mother. To celebrate this "happy day" she chose a remote location: a bench alongside a river. Their reunion is troubled by other characters who have come to the same place — also to talk. Their stories collide into each other, overlap, and echo each other, in a sometimes humorous, sometimes dazzling way. Suddenly, one of them announces he is going to "disappear." He leaves everything behind. A few months later, another "happy day:" an evening at his former partner’s place. He has decided to move on; he does not want to live in mourning. The shadow of the past hovers, dissipates, returns. Can the need for joy defeat a haunted present? Must it? Play after play, Lygre explores the contemporary state of our relationships. Created at the Odéon 6e in September 2022, Jours de joie is remounted at the Ateliers Berthier; an occasion to discover the show, or to rediscover it in a new space.