Since ancient times, she has been the one whose history has been devoured by the theater. Eclipsed, snuffed out by the courage of her sister Antigone, made a symbol of rebellion against injustice by tragedy. “Sister of…”, “Daughter of…” too (Oedipus, Jocasta… an eventful genealogy to say the least), and did Ismene also have something to tell about herself?
She arrives wearing magenta pumps and wrapped in a chic stole that looks a little borrowed. A desk and a microphone await him on a fairground pedestal covered with bottle-green plastic. She confesses her reluctance to come out of her reluctance and finally her decision to accept the invitation to tell her side of the story.
This show takes place in one of the enchanting corners of the pine forest of the Domaine d’O and simply bears its name Ismene is a piece of jewelery with a subtle and delicate sparkle. He captivates the audience with those subtle emotions that make fragile theater an immortal art. woven around a female figure, Ismene is also a feminine piece at its core: the magnificent and surprising text by Carole Fréchette is staged by Marion Coutarel and carried by the extraordinary Mama Prassinos. Accompanied from time to time by a remarkable soprano (Mia Mandineau), the actress takes the audience into a multicolored story between humor and communicative sensibility.
Gracefully taming the vagaries of the open air (like the flight of that helicopter while the spectators hold their breath and hang on Ismene’s every word), Mama Prassinos travels through the small rectangle of the set, from which the traces of an ancient past suddenly emerge. Like his character, we regret that this real fake conference has come to an end.
An actress with a scalpel
A little later in the evening, another actress will light up the night that has fallen in O.’s large amphitheater. An actress who plays an actress and two mirror actresses in the diptych directed by Ivo van Hove based on two plays by Ingmar Bergman, After the test etc persona.
Taking up a staging planned in 2012 at the International Theater in Amsterdam, he has the two opus, each lasting an hour and a half, played by the same actors: Charles Berling, Justine Bachelet and, in particular, Emmanuelle Bercot, who dominates this cast with breathtaking intensity.
in the first room, After the testShe is Rachel, the ghost of an actress summoned by the memories of a director (Charles Berling) in search of the absolute. The absolute, that painful illusion that plunged Rachel into alcoholism and violence. Emmanuelle Bercot oscillates dangerously between tears, weeping and despair and is consumed by her character on set: ” My face… “she repeats, hands to her face as if trying to stop the bleeding from a gash.
In personaIn the second play, Emmanuelle Bercot becomes Elizabeth and has no more words. Leave the fury of fallen Rachel, enter the white and dense silence of wonder: at the end of a performance ofElectraElisabeth, who seemed to succeed in everything, decided not to speak again.
The eternal essence of tragedy.
Embodying multiple facets of the multiple threads that pull Bergman’s two texts, these two characters are confronted here by Ivo van Hove in a fascinating reflection on the theatre. In the second part, Emmanuelle Bercot first appears completely naked on a dissection table lit with pale neon.
This impressive picture, whose secret the director knows, clearly shows the depth of the subject: an autopsy of the mystery of the theater, of a sometimes destructive desire, of the chimeras of truth.
persona continues on the water’s edge, in a stunning lakeside scenography, with an unsettling camera between Elizabeth and her nurse (Justine Bachelet). The latter’s logorrhea contrasts with her patient’s silence. After the howling rage of the first part, Emmanuelle Bercot, whose language has returned to a terribly expressive body, delivers a poignant performance here. Rare in the theater, this actress and director delves into the eternal essence of tragedy.
