Le Zerep sets up a base in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. Over the course of a week, Sophie Perez’s company will be taking over the whole theatre, with an array of sculptures, installations, performances, and concerts. With the La Satiété du spectacle – chapitre germanopratin, the Odéon will be giving itself over to the Zerep reprobates, with the piece entitled Sturbzep as its climax.
Cast
concept, direction, scenography
Sophie Perez
assistant director, scenography
Baptiste de Laubier
texts
Sophie Perez, Pacôme Thiellement, Witold Gombrowicz, Francis Picabia
costumes
Sophie Perez, Corine Petitpierre
music
hackedepicciotto
lighting design
Fabrice Combier
sound design
Félix Perdreau
film directed by
Sophie Perez and Umberto Toselli in collaboration with Baptiste de Laubier
stage management
Frédéric Pierre
backstage management
Adrien Castillo
lighting control
Vincent Chrétien
set and sculpture construction
Eugénio Giorgetta and the workshops Silvano Santinelli Scenografie, Dan Mestanza, Adrien Castillo, Baptiste de Laubier. X-treme créations (for the inflatable fabrication)
costume making
Anne Tesson, Jeanne-Laure Mulonnière
administration, production
Julie Pagnier assisted by Flora Courouge
production
Compagnie du Zerep.
coproduction
Arsenic – Centre d’art scénique contemporain, tnba – Théâtre national Bordeaux Aquitaine, Odéon Théâtre de l’Europe, Charleroi danse, MC93 Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint-Denis, Les Subs – Lieu vivant d’expériences artistiques, Maison du Théâtre d’Amiens Métropole, Théâtre Saint Gervais, Agora – Cité internationale de la danse Centre chorégraphique national Occitanie, TAP – Scène nationale de Grand Poitiers, Le Quai – Centre dramatique national Angers Pays de la Loire, Comédie de Caen – Centre dramatique national de Normandie, Les Ateliers Médicis, Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels.
With the support of the CDNO – Centre dramatique national Orléans.
Project supported by the Fondation Antoine de Galbert and the Fondation Jan Michalski.
With the support of Adami, SPEDIDAM, and the Goethe-Institut / European Union.
Five dates
2000 It has been two years since the Zerep company (an anagram of Perez) was founded. A pivotal meeting with the great and invaluable Ariel Goldenberg. He produced and programmed Zerep’s first five plays: Détail sur la marche arrière, Leutti, Laisse les gondoles à Venise, Le coup du cric andalou, and Gombrowiczshow.
2006 We are in New York at the home of the high priestess of contemporary art, Louise Bourgeois. For thirty years, she has been hosting young artists every Sunday at her mansion in Chelsea. We came with Charles Aznavour’s ventriloquist doll, a few mediocre vases we’d made ourselves during a pottery workshop, and a cheap painting found at the Jeu de Balle in Brussels depicting a brunette woman who seems to be drowning in mustard. Sophie Lenoir and Stéphane Roger take the stage; the performance is short, rather convoluted, and strangely unstoppable. On her sofa, in a nightgown, Louise Bourgeois scrutinizes us with her piercing little eyes. Finally, she applauds and decides, that day, to give us a score: “I give the Charles Aznavours a 9/10.” The Chelsea oracle had spoken, and we will pay homage to her in Enjambe Charles, the upcoming play.
2009 Gombrowiczshow. Here we are, caught up in the artistic antagonism advocated by Gombrowicz. An antagonism that rejects the need for a proper alignment between form and content. But then again… we’re not going to begrudge the expenditure of contradictory and strangely exhilarating energy: it is, after all, a celebration of Witold; and the fortieth anniversary of his death. Curtain.
2023 Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold. It is an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. Foam columns fall from the fly bars and there is a twenty-minute interval after just three minutes of the show. The entire Zerep company for the autopsy of an incomprehensible play, with Sophie Lenoir, Stéphane Roger, Marlène Saldana, Françoise Klein, Gilles Gaston-Dreyfus, Erge Yu, Adrien Castillo, Baptiste de Laubier, Marie-Pierre Brébant, with texts by Pacôme Thiellement and music by Xavier Boussiron.
2024 Publication of the Zerep monograph Le théâtre et son double-fond is a kind of comprehensive guide to Zerep and its works, tracing the company’s twenty-five years of theatrical and artistic escapades.