Company

(2003-2006)

 

"Before I started writing Ligne de fuite, an image pursued me: a floor covered with clothes that we cross on one of the gangways in a Christian Boltanski installation. A glimpse into the memory of hundreds of empty shells that retain the memory of the bodies that wore them...

The themes of escape and initiatory journeys seem to follow me from one creation to the next, so much so that I'm never sure which caused the other. The expression “ligne de fuite” (vanishing line) is not part of the vocabulary of perspective - vanishing point, yes, but not vanishing line. I exploit this shift in meaning. In the darkness, a point of light crosses the stage, and comes to a stop in the centre, a beam of light joins in from rigging off-stage. The point of light gets bigger, the operator climbs out of it and addresses the public - in a tone that is both syrupy and arrogant, humorous and irritable - all the while getting tangled in the vanishing lines...

With a flash, all the lines return to the centre, swallowing up the great operator before he can finish his sentence. To invite the public to follow these vanishing lines, actors sitting in the audience run onto the stage, climbing up onto the gangways, as if to check out this abyss that has just swallowed up the great operator. Little by little, the system will impose its logic on us, once again causing me bin entire scenes, and sometime very elaborate props and decors.

Beyond Meredith Kitchen, who had been working with us for eight years, the five other actors are new arrivals who we got to know during long-term internships. We stopped recruiting through auditions after Dédale.

In our method, there is a certain element of risk: that of getting closeted in by our system. During improvisation sessions, we ask our actors to suggest two completely opposite characters, inspired by an exercise developed during a training course: the fugitive. Old habits die hard; it is interesting either to eliminate them, or to go back to their source and turn them into a source of inspiration...

Our creations relied on a change of scales. It accentuates the feeling of an abyss. Ligne de fuite reaches a paroxysm, with characters that are only a few centimetres tall and ending with an obese giant, several metres tall, taking up a significant proportion of the stage, which  is a metaphor for the disproportionate importance we give to our monsters. It deflates with a gigantic fart; probably the longest fart in the history of theatre.

With Ligne de fuite, I must, however, admit that I allowed myself to be locked in to the scenario and this theme, which fascinated me: “We are all our own murderers”. Before this, I would write a variety of possible avenues for each scene and, depending on the wind, the actors' personality, the materials, and the composer, I allowed us a certain margin for exploration and experimentation. We discussed it, but it remained limited...

Given the technical difficulties, the bulky machinery, and the limited time, everything had to be pre-defined precisely, not leaving any margin for trial and error, dispersion, the improbable, at the risk of failure; and this is where boldness, novelty and innovation is found."

Paysages intérieurs, pp. 194-205 © Actes Sud