NEW CREATION 2021-2022
NEW CREATION 2021-2022
NEW CREATION 2021-2022
KING LEAR
text William Shakespeare
direction and set design Sylvain Levitte
associate director Clara Noël
lighting design Vincent Gabriel
sound design Clémentine Bergel
company stage manager Luca Kempenar
assistant Flore Babled
singing coach Cécile Leterme
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starring
Johann Cuny and Bertrand Uscalt (cast 1)
Pierre Giafferi and Bertrand Usclat (cast 2)
Jean-Christophe Legendre and Loïc Renard (cast 3)
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Running time 1 hour 30
Audience: 15 years +
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production LES CHOSES ONT LEURS SECRETS
support Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, Compagnie des Petits Champs (Clément Hervieu-Léger and Daniel San Pedro)
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Show created in 2015 at Domaine d’Harcourt and Hall de la Chanson – La Villette
Two teenage brothers are locked in an attic, crammed full of objects from the past. Amidst the mess the brothers invent a story. They change characters at breakneck speed. This story becomes the very old tragedy of KING LEAR, before our very eyes...​
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In Levitte's reimagining, we orbit around the two brothers -- Edgar, "the legitimate son" -- and Edmund, "the bastard"; their fractious relationship becomes that which around the rest of LEAR revolves.
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LEAR is a story of intergenerational conflict: the generation fighting oblivion, and the generation fighting to exist. Heir Edgar must save his father (and therefore the status quo); bastard Edmund, or Edmund the revolutionary, must burn it all down in order to survive.
Can the past be preserved if the future is to live? Must we kill the father, or keep him alive?
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The first in Sylvain Levitte's Elizabethan triptych (followed by TWELFTH NIGHT and THE WINTER'S TALE).
Johann Cuny ©Matthieu Touzé
Bertrand Usclat and Johann Cuny ©Matthieu Touzé
"'Tis the time's plague when madmen lead the blind."
"Nothing : nothing can be made out of nothing."
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From 2013 to 2015, we rehearsed, presented public workshop and played this loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear with five actors: Johann Cunny, Bertrand Usclat, Pierre Giafferi, Jean-Christophe Legendre and Loïc Renard. In turn, these five actors played the more than 20 characters written by Shakespeare between 1603 and 1606. We would like to thank them enormously.
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We would also particularly like to thank the partners who supported us throughout this great adventure: JTN, Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, Théâtre de Verre and Hall de la Chanson, and particularly Domaine d’Harcourt and L’Étable in Beaumontel (Compagnie des Petits Champs).
Thank you to Daniel San Pedro, Judith Hervieu, Clément Hervieu-Léger and Martin Roch.
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We plan to resume this production during performances of our Shakespearean triptych : the tragedy (King Lear), the comedy (Twelfth Night) and Winter's Tale in 2022-2023.