an employer-employee dystopia in a collapsing world, by Pierre Notte and Jean-Philippe Daguerre.

Whether in the family, at work, in friendship or in a couple, Pierre Notte examines the power relations that drive his contemporaries. In pedagogy of failure, he imagines an executive and his accountant alone on the seventh floor of a building destroyed by a disaster. Obsessed with their task, they want to keep working at all costs and pretend the world didn’t collapse. Jean-Philippe Daguerre’s minimalist staging is part of a surrealistic situation to better denounce the most concrete social relationships. pedagogy of failure will be played at the Manufacture des Abbesses in Paris until June 17th.

On the edge of the void

In a room draped in black, a man in a suit and tie and a woman in a suit trace their assigned space on the floor. They can’t get out, and with good reason: after a flood whose cause we don’t know, probably an earthquake, everything around them is in ruins. He’s an executive and she’s an accountant. The initial astonishment is gone, both quickly resume their working habits in a very codified hierarchical relationship. But how to proceed when everything is gone and there is nothing left to do? We need to find other occupations: fill the gap by repositioning ourselves towards each other.

He has everything of the young wolf who has achieved his professional goal: to lead a litigation department by satisfying his thirst for command. Julian Watre, very British, portrays a clumsy young upstart in search of authority. She manages the bookkeeping, pragmatic and organized, with a bit of secretarial work that is not part of her duties. Clever, pragmatic and efficient, Clara de Gasquet masters the situation and has an answer for almost everything.

dominant-dominated

The most disturbed of the two is still he, reduced to having only one subordinate to talk to, whom he despises and enslaves, without having the stature of the “wolfhound” he dreams of. She drops the rain and catches it several times before it falls. The dominant-dominated relationship is the focus of the play. While overcome with complacency in the first part, he must persuade himself and is forced to make common cause. She has almost broken through the barriers and frees herself from the hierarchical shackles until she seizes him. Is a reconciliation possible?

Pierre Notte plays with a repetitive text that stigmatizes the alienation of professional tasks with the most joyful absurdity. It’s like the assembly line of modern times Chaplin was applied to the tertiary sector. The characters and their roles develop with a strong dramaturgy in which feelings take a turn and become inappropriate, such as despair. Pierre Notte’s language hits the mark and humor is not lacking in this class struggle that goes on even if all is lost. The sober staging by Jean-Philippe Daguerre is a little reminiscent Dogville by Lars von Trier enhances the most current texts and topics with rare accessories, without neglecting the attention for even a second. Modern.

pedagogy of failure
By Pierre Notte
Directed by Jean Philippe Daguerre
With: Clara de Gasquet and Julian Watre
From April 19th to June 17th, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7pm – Breaks on May 18th, 19th, 20th and June 7th
The Manufacture des Abbesses, 7 rue Véron, 75018 Paris
Phone: 01 42 33 42 03