PERFORMANCES

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.