La période d'exploitation au Théâtre est terminée.
The Triumph of love
Disguised in masculine robes as Phocion, Princess Léonide, accompanied by her servant Corine, also dressed as man under the name of Hermidas, enters the garden of the philosopher Hermocrates – or rather: the philosophical garden of Hermocrates.
In olden days, she tells us, her uncle Leonidas removed from throne, imprisoned and killed King Cleomenis, because he had abducted his mistress. Leonidas took the crown. He never knew that in prison, Cleomenis and his wife had conceived a son, Prince Agis. One of the servants secretly entrusted the child to Hermocrates, the philosopher, who raised him to hate the usurper and murderer Leonidas, to hate his descendants, to hate Princess Leonide.
Leonidas died, loved by his people. His brother succeeded him on the throne. Leonide, about to receive the crown in her turn, heiress of an old hate unjustly directed at her, suffers from the weight of this affair that divides her country into two camps – those who claim that the lawful king was Cleomenis and those who deem it was Leonidas. The princess wishes to reconcile the two clans, to find Agis, make him fall in love with her, marry him, and restore legitimate power and lasting peace in the kingdom. Her plan is of a political nature.
She must move concealed. The hate is too strong and she could never approach Agis under her real name. Thus she becomes Phocion.
Whatever it takes to reach her goal. Bribe lackeys (two shady and corrupt characters) who soon enough find out her real identity, pitilessly lie and cheat anyone. She will seduce, at the same time and in the same place: Agis, the young prince, the chaste Leontine, and the philosopher Hermocrates. Spare no one. The philosophical garden is devastated. All three succumb to the disease of love, heartbroken. Each one wants to run away with her, to abandon the peaceful and ideal place of abode. Phocion triumphs, takes away the Prince and leaves two victims, Leontine and her brother Hermocrates, lost in the disenchanted garden.
I like the figure of this isolated philosopher. Hermocrates has formed a small social circle that lives according to his principles. In it one cultivates the garden, plays music, reads, one eats and drinks, but one does not love. Hermocrates’ Utopia is contained in this renunciation.
There, harmony reigns at the cost of dismemberment.
In our Triumph of Love this little society shall live in the most concrete way possible. The same way that would live a garden, that I imagine rather as a park in which we would wander through the landscape and diverse hidden recesses – an English garden, a French garden, open, dense, etc. A nature that doesn’t give a hoot about Hermocrates’ precepts.
Marivaux is often played in an abstract way, especially this piece that revolves around a philosopher. I would, on the contrary, rather have Love triumph in the middle of a meal, of a coral performance or a sonata, emerge from a bush, a haystack, while wood is being hacked or sawed. Hermocrates, Leontine, Agis, Harlequin, Dimas, joined by a musician on stage, silent, (the cellist, Christophe Coin), are the whacky members of this community whose order and peace will be destroyed.
Phocion arrives innocently, without knowing or understanding the rules of the place. But like its dwellers, she knows no love. She says so to her Servant. She comes in order to love the Prince Agis, without knowing anything about desire, without ever having loved, a virgin. She is not an unabashed libertine. The situation makes her appear like one because she simultaneously engages, with rare virtuosity, in three love conquests.
Maybe this mastery comes to her precisely from her innocence and ignorance. And Leontine, Agis and Hermocrates succumb, not because they are dealing with a diabolical woman, but because they have before them an Angel, Love in person, that they thought expelled from the garden once and for all.
Denis Podalydès
By Marivaux
Stage direction Denis Podalydès from Comédie-Française
Musical direction Christophe Coin
Set Eric Ruf
Costumes Christian Lacroix
Lighting Stéphanie Daniel
Sound Bernard Vallery
Wigs and Make Up Véronique Soulier-Nguyen
Assistant Director Laurent Podalydès
Set assistant Caroline Frachet
Costumes assistant Jean Philippe Pons
Painter decorater Allessandro Lanzillotti
With
Edwige Baily - Hermidas
Jean-Noël Brouté - Arlequin
Christophe Coin - Musicien
Philippe Duclos - Hermocrate
Stéphane Excoffier - Léontine
Leslie Menu - Phocion
Dominique Parent - Dimas
Thibault Vinçon - Agis
Production C.I.C.T. - Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord
Associated Coproducers Maison de la culture d’Amiens - Pôle européen de création et de production ; Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg ; Théâtre de Liège ; Opéra Royal / Château de Versailles Spectacles ; Châteauvallon – Scène Nationale ; Printemps des Comédiens / Montpellier ; TNT - Théâtre National de Toulouse
Coproduction Théâtre du Gymnase / Marseille ; La Criée - Théâtre national de Marseille ; Théâtre de Nîmes, scène conventionnée d'intérêt national pour la danse contemporaine ; Espace Jean Legendre, Théâtre de Compiègne ; Théâtre de Caen ; Théâtre Le Forum / Fréjus ; DC&J Création, avec le soutien du Tax Shelter du Gouvernement fédéral de Belgique et de Inver Tax Shelter
Set construction Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg
Costumes making Le Théâtre de Liège
Duration : 2h05 without intermission