Subject
The writing and staging of Le Triptyque de la Personne started in 2007. It is now coming to an end with a third and last part, entitled SUJET. Following Singularités Ordinaires and Nour, SUJET brings to the stage fragile but medically cared persons. Part 3 of Le Triptyque de la Personne broadens the reflection on the bonds individuals form to be able to show a consistent identity and to hold “a persona” within themselves. The GdRA thus carries on with the writing of contextual narrative drama. In other words, what could be called a theatre of portraiture.
Deep in the woods, a man turns into a hind. A saint cures so-called “lunatics”. A researcher, who once stayed in a psychiatric ward, describes the Hopi Snake Dance. A “patient” is Bruce Lee and Jesus Christ at the same time. An ethno-psychiatrist talks about the “Finnish conception of the subject”. A female tarantella singer tells the story of a spider biting soul-sick people.
In this play, various narrative situations tackle the questions of medical care, the individual and the norm. What does “subject” mean to the Moderns? “Domination” or “Emancipation”? To what extent does the mystery of the “normal subject” weave a web with power, reprehensible or acceptable behaviours, science or health? Deeply rooted in a theatre of the humanities, the acting bodies, these tied up, bonded, free and buoyant subjects, talk, dance, fall, arise and sing while telling the story of Emile, the hind-man’s son. Up to the woods.
INFERNO MAGAZINE – 2014 – YVES KAFKA
“However, multidisciplinarity is not necessarily synonymous with yielding to the current trend. […] Not only does the GdRA escape that criticism but the company also uses these various means of expression as the cornerstone of a grammar that serves its syntax. The collective adopts a stage language that deconstructs the uniqueness of the form and implements a protean language instead, for it is the only one which can account for the necessary deconstruction of the human-subject. Nipping in the bud any dogmatic vision of what a person is, the use of such varied media as video, circus arts, dance, theatre and music metaphorically plays its part in the endeavour.”
THEATRE DU BLOG - 2014 - VERONIQUE HOTTE
“The staging of such a starry writing with its bits of versatile language summons acrobatics, dance, theatre, texts, video and music all together. Its dramatic design uses everydayness to transfigure reality. The performers’ bodies are utterly involved within the scenographic space and its volume—sounds and images, moves and acting, screens and vertical ropes. […] All the actors perform their arts with respect for the others: they jump, soar into the air, bounce, fall and fall again, stand back up, are restrained by improbable bonds, set themselves free from them… One does not know where to look at in this perfectly organised chaos, while listening to the guitar, clarinet, accordion, keyboard, drums and percussion near tree trunks and ropes loosely tied to hangers. Who are we? Looking for one’s identity through the performers’ showcase is pure pleasure.”
