Les Paravents

[ The Screens ]
by Jean Genet
directed by Arthur Nauzyciel



estimated duration 3h45 (with intermission)

Du 31 mai au 19 juin 2024

Odéon 6e

Out of subscription: sales open on Tuesday 26 March

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with Hinda Abdelaoui, Zbeida Belhajamor, Mohamed Bouadla, Aymen Bouchou, Océane Caïraty, Marie-Sophie Ferdane, Xavier Gallais, Hammou Graïa, Romain Gy, Jan Hammenecker, Brahim Koutari, Benicia Makengele, Mounir Margoum, Farida Rahouadj, Maxime Thébault, Catherine Vuillez and the voice of Frédéric Pierrot

Jean Genet’s plays are full of pariahs beyond help who, as they look at you with a spark of mischief in their eyes, wallow in mud, in a lyric, irradiant language. In Les Paravents (The Screens), a family goes through what looks like the Algerian War. But what a family! A mother, her son and her daughter in law, "the ugliest of the neighboring country and of all the nearby countries" oscillate between wretched thefts and sublime treachery, while around them, the revolution is getting organized. When it was created at the Odéon in 1966, the insolent play that, according to Genet himself, stands "outside of any morality," sparked a violent battle between advocates of the army and French Algeria, and those of freedom of creation. Almost sixty years later, Arthur Nauzyciel stages this crazy and monstrous play on the stage of the Odeon again, with a troupe of sixteen actors. By reactivating the metaphysical and melancholic power of the writing, Nauzyciel takes on Genet’s gesture: transcending reality through poetry to make the world tolerable.

Out of subscription: sales open on Tuesday 26 March

By subscribing: all shows are open for sale now!