Scenes from a marriage

Markus Öhrn returns to France with a new piece, adapted from Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage. Originally created for television, it examines, year after year, the trials and tribulations of a bourgeois couple who struggle to separate but find it equally impossible to stay together. Rejecting realism, the artist and director transposes Bergman's story into a world where contours are exaggerated, where violence is caricatured and disinhibited, and where visual art meets the Grand-Guignol tradition. With their masked faces and their distorted voices, Johan and Marianne become like avatars of a cruel game. Within the bare walls of a white box, they engage in a sadistic struggle that acts as a distorting mirror, revealing social conventions and exposing the violence that lurks in the secrecy of the home.