Absalom, Absalom!

Based on the novel by William Faulkner
Directed by Séverine Chavrier

Estimated length: 5 hrs. (with interval)

26 March – 11 April

Odéon 6^e

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With Pierre Artières-Glissant, Daphné Biiga Nwanak, Jérôme de Falloise, Alban Guyon, Jimy Lapert, Armel Malonga, Annie Mercier, Hendrickx Ntela, Kevin Bah “Ordinateur”, Laurent Papot and Maric Barbereau

Resembling an ancient tragedy, infused with biblical doom, Absalom, Absalom! tells the story of Thomas Sutpen, a man who, after leaving everything behind, moves to a small town in Mississippi to develop an immense estate, but fails to found a family due to a background of incest and fratricide. Behind this collapse of social revenge, Faulkner is truly talking about the fall of the American South, this quasi-mythological place in which writer Édouard Glissant points out its illegitimacy due to the combined original sins of slavery and the massacre of indigenous peoples. As is always seen in Séverine Chavrier’s work, the theatre enters into dialogue with literature, music, dance and imagery, and in its brimming urgency, it unmasks America, showing it to be a place where dreams are destroyed rather than fulfilled.

Out of subscription: sales open on Tuesday 4 February

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Estimated length: 5 hrs. (with interval)

Tuesday to Saturday at 7pm, Sunday at 3pm

no performances on Mondays and Sunday 30 March

performances with English surtitles on Saturday 29 March and Saturday 5 April

Previews on 25 March

Happy Thursday on Thursdays 27 March, 3 and 10 April

translation by René-Noël Raimbault
revised by François Pitavy
set design, props Louise Sari
sound Simon d'Anselme de Puisaye, Séverine Chavrier
lighting Germain Fourvel
music Armel Malonga
video Quentin Vigier
stage camera Claire Willemann
costumes Clément Vachelard
bird education Tristan Plot
dramaturgy, assistant director Marie Fortuit, Marion Platevoet, Baudouin Woehl

production Comédie de Genève

coproduction Centre dramatique national d'Orléans - Centre-Val de Loire, Festival d'Avignon, Théâtres de la ville de Luxembourg, Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (Barcelona), ThéâtredelaCité - centre dramatique national Toulouse Occitanie, Bonlieu - scène nationale d'Annecy, Théâtre de Liège - DC&J Création

with the support of Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government and Inver Tax Shelter

with the support of the Ernst Göhner Foundation

with the artistic participation of the Jeune théâtre national

Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner, translation by René-Noël Raimbault, Gallimard, L'imaginaire, 2000

created at the Festival d'Avignon 2024

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From her training in philosophy to her piano studies at the Geneva Conservatoire, not forgetting numerous courses on acting, Séverine Chavrier has retained a pronounced taste for mixing arts and genres. As an actor and musician, she has worked with Rodolphe Burger, Jean-Louis Martinelli and François Verret, while directing her own company, La Sérénade interrompue. In 2009, as director, she created Épousailles et représailles, based on Hanokh Levin, presented at the Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers and then at the Festival Impatience. She then became an associate artist at Centquatre-Paris in 2011, where she created Série B - Ballard J. G and Plage ultime, inspired by the work of James Graham Ballard, which premiered at the Avignon Festival in 2012. She builds her shows by delving into the universe of the authors she loves, and invents singular forms using all kinds of materials: the body, speech, video, the sounds of the piano, objects... This was the case with Les Palmiers sauvages, based on the novel by William Faulkner, and Nous sommes repus mais pas repentis (inspired by Déjeuner chez Wittgenstein by Thomas Bernhard), which were initiated, produced and created between 2014 and 2016 at the Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, then revived at the Ateliers Berthier in spring 2016.

From 2017 to 2023, she will direct the Centre dramatique national d'Orléans / Centre-Val de Loire.

At the same time, she is continuing her work as a director: in Après coups, Projet Un-Femme, created in Orléans and presented at the TNB Festival in Rennes and at the MC93, she brought together female artists from the circus and dance worlds; in 2020, she created at the Théâtre national de Strasbourg with the Festival Musica Aria da Capo about adolescence and music, as well as Las Palmeras Salvajes, a Spanish-language version of Les Palmiers sauvages at the invitation of the Festival Santiago a Mil. With After all, in 2021, she also developed a teaching activity and was artistic director of the 33rd class of students at the Centre national des arts du cirque.

In 2023, she took over as director of the Comédie de Genève.

Absalom, Absalom!

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Biography of Séverine Chavrier