Seuls en Scène 2017 presents

Every fall since 2012, the theater festival Seuls en Scène brings celebrated French actors and directors to Princeton for a series of performances, workshops, and conversations in different venues on campus.

Please join us for the 2017 edition of Seul en Scène.


FRI SEP 15 - SAT SEP 16, 2017 · 8:00 pm | MATHEWS ACTING STUDIO / 185 NASSAU STREET | DURATION: 90 MIN

Interview
Nicolas Truong, Judith Henry & Nicolas Bouchaud

Thumbnail for INTERVIEW: Photo of Christophe Raynaud.

Judith Henry and Nicolas Bouchaud take turns asking and answering questions. In doing so, they use a colorful palette of interview tropes to lead us on a meandering journey which, despite its overuse, still has the potential for emotional revelation. Somewhere between a lion’s den and a therapist’s office, the well-executed interview creates a place where speech flows freely.

Tickets are FREE but reservations are required — click here to RSVP.


WED SEP 20 - THU SEP 21, 2017 8:00 pm | MATTHEWS ACTING STUDIO / 185 NASSAU STREET | DURATION: 100 MIN

L’Art du théâtre & Le début de l’A
Pascal Rambert

Thumbnail for L’Art du théâtre & Le début de l’: Photo of Aerial view of a city, New York

“I wrote Le début de l’A. in Paris in the heat of the summer of 2000. Alone. And without the woman I loved. We had just finished a beautiful and challenging project together, L’Epopée de Gilgamesh for the Avignon Festival. She was a member of the American team and had returned to New York. My body and my mind, just like at the end of every play, were devastated. Every day I had silent conversations with my beloved. The story I tell is the unique moment when feelings of love arise which we wish would never stop; When, at last, everything begins.

Le début de l’A. will be introduced by L’Art du théâtre, a manifesto on what I consider the actor’s work to be. This 40-minute piece follows an actor as he explains his craft to his dog. The two shows, Le début de l’A. and L’Art du théâtre, can be experienced independently or together, the first explaining the ethos governing the second.”  -Pascal Rambert

Tickets are FREE but reservations are required — click here to RSVP.


FRI SEP 22 - SAT SEP 23, 2017 · 8:00 pm | MATTHEWS ACTING STUDIO / 185 NASSAU STREET | DURATION: 75 MIN

By Heart
Tiago Rodrigues Teatro Nacional D. Maria II Lisboa

Thumbnail for By Heart: Photo of a seated group on a stage.

In By Heart, Tiago Rodrigues tells the story of his grandmother who, after becoming blind, asks her grandson to choose a book that she can learn by heart.

To accomplish that task, Rodrigues requests the help of ten audience volunteers. In doing so, he does more than just blur the frontier between fiction and reality. In fact, he invites people to enlist in a poetic army and therefore to manifest and share a singular experience — that of remembering, then reciting, a text.

Tickets are FREE but reservations are required — click here to RSVP.


SAT SEP 23, 2017 · 2:00pm - SUN SEP 24, 2017 · 5:00pm | BUTLER COLLEGE AMPHITHEATER | DURATION: 95 MIN

Prométhée Enchaîné & Les Suppliantes
Aeschylus / Olivier Py

Thumbnail for Prométhée Enchaîné & Les Suppliantes: Photo of man holding olive branch.

A god tortured by gods for having loved man and condemned by Zeus for having offered them art and fire, Prometheus embodies disobedience and challenges established power. He is among the most cited figures in literature from Aeschylus onward, and in this play the Titan is opposed by a cast of divine lieutenants including Hephaistos, Apollo, and Hermes. Because any such play is fundamentally political, the piece offers, according to playwright and director Olivier Py, a “lesson in insurrection.” (Subtitles in English)

Tickets are FREE but reservations are required — click here to RSVP.


TUE SEP 26 - WED SEP 27,  2017 · 8:00pm | MATTHEWS ACTING STUDIO / 185 NASSAU STREET | DURATION: 80 MIN

Unwanted
Dorothée Munyaneza

Thumbnail for Unwanted: Photo of Dorothée Munyaneza

How can we express the physical and mental repercussions of rape used as an instrument of war? The choreographer Dorothée Munyaneza set off in search of those women who had been subjected to mistreatment during the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda. In Unwanted, she confronts us with pain and anguish that has been perpetuated by conflicts of war.

Tickets are FREE but reservations are required — click here to RSVP.


THU SEP 28 - FRI SEP 29, 2017 · 8:00pm | MATTHEWS ACTING STUDIO / 185 NASSAU STREET | DURATION: 80 MIN

Portrait(s) Foucault — Letzlove
Pierre Maillet

Thumbnail for Portrait(s) Foucalt - Letzlove: Photo of Pierre Maillet

Summer 1975. A young man is hitchhiking toward Caen. The driver who stops has an unusual look: he is bald, with wire-rimmed glasses, a crew neck shirt, and unbounded curiosity about his young passenger. They trade numbers before parting ways.
Three years later, a book of interviews, Vingt ans et après, is published, featuring our young hitchhiker, Thierry Voetzel, and famed philosopher Michel Foucault, who remains anonymous. In their conversations, they discuss existential shifts in young people’s relation to sexuality, as well as drugs, family, work, religion, music, books… and revolution. Forty years later, this document reveals as much about the life experience of Thierry as it does about Foucault.

Tickets are FREE but reservations are required — click here to RSVP.


SAT SEP 30, 2017  · 4:00pm & 9:00pm | WHITMAN COLLEGE CLASS OF 1970 THEATER | DURATION: 60 MIN

Myrrha
Guillaume Vincent

Thumbnail for Myrrha: Photo of a man and woman kissing

Guillaume Vincent returns to Seuls en Scène (Rendez-vous Gare de l’Est – 2013) with Myrrha, a part of Songes et Métamorphoses that he recently directed and presented throughout France. Songes et Métamorphoses is a show in two parts: Le Songe d’une nuit d’été (Midsummer Night’s Dream) by Shakespeare, followed by Les Métamorphoses, a text written by Vincent and inspired by Shakespeare’s words.

In Les Métamorphoses, Vincent uses several Ovidian myths, such as Myrrha, that he adapts to our time: high school students perform the myth in their theater class as a way of questioning the limits of performance, as well as their own identity and existence.

Tickets are FREE but reservations are required — click here to RSVP.