with
Laurent Papot
Marijke Pinoy
Camille Voglaire
Florian Satche (percussions)

After Nous sommes repus mais pas repentis (Ateliers Berthier, 2016), Séverine Chavrier returns to Thomas Bernhard, the absolute nonpareil of provocation and exaggeration. A couple has spent the last twenty years barricaded in the Lime Works, for Konrad demands absolute quiet to compose his « Essay on Hearing ». But his wife is disabled. Konrad must take care of all the daily chores. Time eats away at life, and vice versa... A musical suite of variations on sterility and folie à deux, Bernhard’s 1970 novel The Lime Works inspired Chavrier to create a microcosm reminiscent of Bergman's Persona and Kubrick's Shining – a cold echo chamber haunted by all forms of sound, from voices in the basement to percussions played live on plasterboard.

Cast

scenography Louise Sari
video Quentin Vigier
sound Simon d’Anselme de Puisaye, Séverine Chavrier
musician Florian Satche
light Germain Fourvel
costumes Andrea Matweber
bird training and education Tristan Plot
accessory Rodolphe Noret
director assitant Ferdinand Flame
video control Typhaine Steiner
technical coordination Corto Tremorin
set construction Julien Fleureau, Olivier Berthel
forest design Hervé Mayon – La Licorne Verte
IRCAM intervention Augustin Muller
 

and the technical team of the Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe

 

production déléguée Centre dramatique national Orléans/Centre-Val de Loire

 

coproduction Théâtre de Liège – centre scénique de la fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Théâtre national de Strasbourg, ThéâtredelaCité – centre dramatique national Toulouse Occitanie, Tandem Arras Douai – scène nationale, Teatre nacional de Catalunya – Barcelone

 

avec l’aide exceptionnelle de la région Centre-Val de Loire

 

partenaires Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, Teatro Nacional São João – Porto, Théâtre national Dona Maria II – Lisbonne

 

avec l’aide du Jeune théâtre national, de l’ENSATT – École nationale supérieure des arts et techniques du théâtre – Lyon

Biography of Séverine Chavrier

From her training in philosophy to her piano studies at the Geneva Conservatoire, not forgetting numerous courses on acting, Séverine Chavrier has retained a pronounced taste for mixing arts and genres. As an actor and musician, she has worked with Rodolphe Burger, Jean-Louis Martinelli and François Verret, while directing her own company, La Sérénade interrompue. In 2009, as director, she created Épousailles et représailles, based on Hanokh Levin, presented at the Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers and then at the Festival Impatience. She then became an associate artist at Centquatre-Paris in 2011, where she created Série B - Ballard J. G and Plage ultime, inspired by the work of James Graham Ballard, which premiered at the Avignon Festival in 2012. She builds her shows by delving into the universe of the authors she loves, and invents singular forms using all kinds of materials: the body, speech, video, the sounds of the piano, objects... This was the case with Les Palmiers sauvages, based on the novel by William Faulkner, and Nous sommes repus mais pas repentis (inspired by Déjeuner chez Wittgenstein by Thomas Bernhard), which were initiated, produced and created between 2014 and 2016 at the Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, then revived at the Ateliers Berthier in spring 2016.


From 2017 to 2023, she will direct the Centre dramatique national d'Orléans / Centre-Val de Loire. 

At the same time, she is continuing her work as a director: in Après coups, Projet Un-Femme, created in Orléans and presented at the TNB Festival in Rennes and at the MC93, she brought together female artists from the circus and dance worlds; in 2020, she created at the Théâtre national de Strasbourg with the Festival Musica Aria da Capo about adolescence and music, as well as Las Palmeras Salvajes, a Spanish-language version of Les Palmiers sauvages at the invitation of the Festival Santiago a Mil. With After all, in 2021, she also developed a teaching activity and was artistic director of the 33rd class of students at the Centre national des arts du cirque.


In 2023, she took over as director of the Comédie de Genève.