J`ai enduré vos discours et j`ai l`oreille en feu

J’ai enduré
vos discours
et j’ai l’oreille
en feu
First I would like to talk about this picture, taken by Charles
Paulicevitch.
About the old lady in yellow, with her wrinkled hands.
She’s looking elsewhere, sitting up straight as though, despite
her old age and her story, she was still looking ahead. Moving
on through thick and thin. Or she might be looking at her own
death, or the one of those she once loved or hated.
This lady embodies “The Revenger’s tragedy”, the elizabethan
play we have chosen to work on: she is from the past and is
looking towards us. “The Revenger’s tragedy”, staring at us.
Nobody knows who the playwright really is – Thomas Middleton? Cyril Tourneur? Or somebody else? The play brings up
many questions and topics that are still hot nowadays..
This lady could also be Castiza - the sister of the main
character, Vendice - years after the tragedy.
Castiza who supported Vendice with all her might during
nine years. Nine years have past since the death of
Vendice’s fiancee, Gloriana, and the beginning of the play
when Vendice’s revenge finally comes into action. Castiza
will survive Vendice’s devastating passion. A passion that
will lead him to his death on the scaffold.
This lady could also be Gloriana– Vendice’s fiancee. Or rather what she would have been if she hadn’t poisoned her young self, after being raped - or not- by
the Duke. That question of «has there been rape or not? », that doubt that benefits the criminal and certainly not the victim, is a central point in our work. The
question of course is not whether rape is good or bad, obviously. What we want to question is what leads to rape, what are the different layers that make it a
latent threat, a war weapon, a process to eradicate women.
For a long time I thought that a woman wearing a
short skirt or showing off her cleavage was a call for
rape, and that going out dressed like that was, probably
unconsciously, wanting to get caught. I thought that rape
was like a disease that you would catch or not! That it
all depended on our own behaviour or on a obscure predisposition. To cut short, if a person was raped it meant
that they were looking for it. And thus all they deserved
was shame. A shame that, in the original play, leads to
the suicide of women whom men have raped or “tried”
to rape.
I was brought up in that idea, my mother herself got it
from her grandmother who was raped in her youth, shortly before she got married. But there weren’t any short
skirts at that time, and the cleavages were well hidden.
So I’m back to my central question: what leads to rape?
I don’t claim to be able to answer this question, I don’t
even want to find an answer.
I just want to think it through.
To question what’s surrounding me.
The Revenger’s Tragedy, play from 1606, is a very rich material through which we can look at our own times. I have endur’d you with an eare of fire is a line from
the original play, said by Castiza to her mother. We will question what part a mother plays in transmitting the notion of female submission, and The Revenger’s
Tragedy does it very cleverly. Casitza’s words also reveal an exasperation that we want to point out . She expresses her refusal. She says NO. NO to submission,
NO to revenge, NO to the appeal of tragedy for tragedy: blood and fury.
Throughout our different Flash Flow and
workshops, different points of view came up
and lead to many digressions. We approach
the work collectively: actors, sound/light/set
designers, writer, everyone contributes in their
singular reading of the play . We work in a
constant back and forth between the original
play, the stage, and the new material written by
Caroline Lamarche. From this prolific exchange
we pick some moments, fragments, to fill the
gaps – or not - of what was left unsaid by the
original play.
It seems important to us to question the leitmotiv of the original play: the «nine years», which is repeated several times by
Vendice, these nine long years of silence between the crime and
his revenge. When the play starts, Gloriana has been raped nine
years ago, she poisonned herself nine years ago, to avoid dishonor.
Nine years of mourning, for Vendice. Discreet Castiza lives during
nine years besides her brother. Nine years of an invisible gestation
for this revenge which starts on this flamboyant predication of
Vendice:
Duke Royall letcher! Goe, gray hayrde adultery !
And thou his sonne, as impious steept as hee:
And thou, his bastard, true-begott in evill:
And thou his Dutchesse, that will doe with Devill:
Foure exlent Characters! -
A revenge that won’t end by punishing the offenders but will pursue its deadly journey, as if it was driven by its own movement, ruining the life of Vendice, and
offering Castiza a freedom we are left to imagine.
Anne Thuot
Anne Thuot
Caroline Lamarche
After studying theatre in INSAS, she worked as an actress with the Brussels based collective Dito’Dito
and the young Flemish theatre Bronks. She also played in Capital Confiance, a Transquinquennal/
Groupe Toc creation. She is one of the founding members of the Groupe Toc and she directed almost
all of their shows. She created with Cédric Lenoir the performance project toi&moi (nous sommes
occupés). In 2012, she created Histoires pour faire des cauchemars, a play for young audience by
Etienne Lepage. She is a teacher in INSAS, and artist in residence in Théâtre de l’Ancre (Charleroi).
Marie Bos
After studying in INSAS, she worked with David Strosberg, Wim Vandekeybys, Françoise
Bloch, Isabelle Pousseur, Stéphane Arcas,
Zouzou Leyens, Carline Logiou, the Flemish
group Marius. The last creations she took part
in were: Ravissement, directed by Mélanie
and Estelle Rullier, Projet Ibsen, 1ère partie: Le
fond des mers directed by Guillemette Laurent
and Melanie Daniels by Claude Schmitz, as
part of the Kunstenfestivaldesarts. She acted
in different movies, including Amer, a fantastic movie by Bruno Forzani and Hélène Cattet,
which has received many prizes in several
festivals.
Alice Hubball
She studied in the Royal Conservatory of Liège,
and played in Eloge de l’intime directed by Pascal
Crochet, in Le traitement by Martin Crimp. She
worked with Galin Stoev as assistant director in
La vie est un rêve, and as actress in the lectures
of Danse Delhi and Rose is a rose is a rose by Y.
Borissova. Perfect bilingual English-French, she
has played in the movie Angel by François Ozon,
Hitler à Hollywood by Frédéric Sojcher and Le
goût des myrtilles by Thomas De Thier. She is a
founding member of the Collectif Rien de spécial
with Hervé Piron and Marie Lecomte. Together,
they created In vitrine and Superoupas, a play for
young audience.
Francesco Italiano
After studying in Piccolo Teatro di Milano, he played in different italian theater productions. In 2002, he
took part in L’école des Maîtres, which lead him to work with Jacques Delcuvellerie. From that moment,
he started to work in Belgium, completing his formation by a master in The Royal Conservatory of Liège.
He has worked with Jacques Delcuvellerie (Anathème), Groupe Toc (La fontaine au sacrifice and Come
to me comme tout le monde), Charlie Degotte (Dju), Christophe Sermet (Hamelin and Mamma Medea),
Noémie Carcaud (Au plus près) and Guillemette Laurent (Projet Ibsen, 1ère partie: Le fond des mers).
Born in Liège, she published Le jour du chien
(Minuit, prix Rossel 1996), La nuit l’après-midi, (Minuit 1998), and four novels by Gallimard.
Latest books: Carnets d’une soumise de province
(Folio 2004), Karl et Lola (2007), La Chienne de
Naha (2012) and Mira (Impressions nouvelles, october 2013). She has written a certain amount
of short stories and poems, radio play and theater. A forthcoming text, La mémoire de l’air,
has been read by Dominique Blanc in Avignon
in 2012 (Voix d’auteur, France-Culture/SACD).
Hervé Piron
After studying acting in INSAS, he has worked
with Isabelle Pousseur (L’homme des bois), Julien
Roy (Oreste), Marcel Delval (Chacun sa chance),
Daniel Danis (Le langue à langue des chiens de
roches), Virgine Thirion (Boxe), Jean-François
Noville (Froid), Antoine Laubin (Les Langues Paternelles et Dehors), Jérome Nayer (Hors-la-loi).
He has created Petit déjeuner orageux un soir
de carnaval with Eno Krojanker. He has been a
member of Groupe Toc from the beginning and
has played in almost all or their shows. He also
played in Capital Confiance, a Transquinquennal/
Groupe Toc creation. He is a founding member
of the Collectif Rien de Spécial and created In
vitrine. He worked with the movie directors Jaco
Van Dormael, Philippe de Pierpont, Philippe Monier, Jean-Luc Gazon and Michael Bier.
Lorette Moreau
Sara Sampelayo
In the Royal Conservatory of Mons, Lorette Moreau has worked,
amongst others, with Jasmina Douieb, Sylvie Landuyt, Christophe Sermet and Anne Thuot. She took part as a trainee in
L’Ombre by Evgueni Schwartz, directed by Jasmina Douieb. She
has been Anne Thuot’s assistant director since 2011 and plays
in Histoires pour faire des cauchemars. In 2012-2013, she developped her own project as a director in the Laboréales, which
supports young transdisciplinary creation. After a residence in
Théâtre des Doms (Avignon), she has shown a first draft of
her project Cataclop enzovoorts in june 2013 in the Balsamine
Theater.
She is born in Burgos (Spain). She studied contemporary dance at Real Conservatory of
Dance in Madrid, and studied photography. She was a member of the Chevy Muraday
company, and has worked with choreographers like Pedro Berdayes and Carmen Werner.
She also worked with with the movie directors Gerardo Vera, Ramon Salazar and Emilio
Martinez Lazaro. In 2006, she danced in Puur, by Ultima Vez/ Wim Vandekeybus. In Belgium, she has worked with Michiel Soete, Coral Ortega, la Cie D’ici P, Soit cie/Hans Van
Den Broek. In 2013, she has worked with Harold Henning. She is currently working on her
own project Just in Time for Something Else.
Arnaud Paquotte
Musician and visual artist, he mostly plays electric bass and takes part in several bands of written music
and free improvisation. He also works for performing arts, as a sound designer in Strette, by Nicolas
Mouzet-Tagawa; in Violet by Jon Fosse, directed by B. Vantusso/Cie 3-6-30; in Les aveugles by M. Maeterlinck, cie 3-6-30; in Kant by Jon Fosse, cie 3-6-30. His visual artist activities lead him to design sound
machines that are in direct relation with the electric phenomenon. Strongly amplified, and shown as a
performance in a complete darkness, this work has a strong influence on his practice as a musician and
his relation to composition and time.
Mathieu Boxho
Visual artist and sculptor, he studied sculpture in the ARBA-ESA. In 2009, he got a grant from the FWB
to lead an artistic research in the textile studio in the Centre de la Tapisserie of Tournai. In 2012, he had
an individual exhibition in the Galerie Vertige (Brussels). Since 2008, he teaches sculpture in the Academy
of Arts and in the Arba-Esa (Brussels). He conceived the scenery of Carmen, by Cie Karyatides (2011) and
the scenery of Superoupas, by Collectif Rien de Spécial (2013).
Raphaël Noël
Raphaël Noël works as a light designer in Exhibit B by Brett Bailey. He has also worked as
a main technician with several companies: Cie
Jours Tranquilles, Cie des Lumas (Lyon), Clinic
Orgasm Society and in the Kunstenfestivaldesarts. He worked as a light designer for Cie
Abaca-Théâtre, Cie Soit/Hans Van den Broek,
Collectif Rien de Spécial, Fast ASBL. He has
conceived and has played in Capital Confiance,
a transquinquennal/Groupe Toc creation. He
was a founding member of the Groupe Toc,
worked as a light designer in all of their shows,
played in Les 24h de Tina Pools à la recherche
de son bonheur, and co-directed Moi, Michèle
Mercier, 52 ans, Morte with Anne Thuot.
Based on The revenger’s tragedy by Thomas Middleton or Cyril Tourneur | Conception and direction Anne Thuot | Assisted by Lorette Moreau | Writing Caroline
Lamarche and the actors | Translation Caroline Lamarche (EN/FR), Rokus Hofstede for C. Lamarche’s texts (FR/NL), Rudi Bekaert (FR/NL), Stéfania Ricciardi (EN/
IT) | With Marie Bos, Alice Hubball, Francesco Italiano, Hervé Piron, Sara Sampelayo | Dramaturgy Olivier Hespel | Light design Raphaël Noël | Sound design Arnaud
Paquotte, Trainee Léonard Cornevin | Scenography Mathieu Boxho assisted by Hugo Messina | Props construction Didier Rodot | Costumes Heidi Ehrhart | graphic
design Charlotte Lippinois | Coaching Gilles Polet | Creation Fastasbl | Production L’ANCRE (Charleroi) | Coproduction La Balsamine (Bruxelles) | With the support of
Ministère de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles – Service du Théâtre and Le Centre des Arts Scéniques, Cocof, BOZAR, Théâtre National, kc nOna, Kunstencentrum
BUDA, Théâtre du Rond- Point (Paris), Atelier 210, Wallonie-Bruxelles Théâtre/Danse, Eden - Centre Culturel Régional de Charleroi | Photography Olivier Donnet
| Thanks to everyone who took part in the Flash Flows.
Tour management: Vincent Desoutter - diffusion.ancre@gmail. - Théâtre de L’Ancre - Rue de Montigny 122, 6000 Charleroi
- 071 314 079 - www.ancre.be