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.

Cast

assistant directors Constance de Saint Remy, Théo Heugebaert
dramaturgy Leila Adham
choreographic work Damien Jalet
lights Scott Zielinski
set design and props Riccardo Hernández
with the collaboration of Léa Tubiana
sculpture Alain Burkhart
sculpture assistant Jeanne Leblon Delienne
sound Xavier Jacquot
video Pierre-Alain Giraud
costumes, make-up, hair and painting of the djellabas José Lévy
costume assistant Marion Régnier
hair and make-up Agnès Dupoirier

general management Jean-Luc Briand
light management Christophe Delarue
sound management Florent Dalmas
stage management Antoine Giraud-Roger, Quentin Viandier
video management Stéphane Pougnand
dressing Charlotte Gillard
props Fanny Martel

casting Bénédicte Guiho
physical training Jean-Baptiste André

decor design Ateliers du Théâtre du Nord
costumes design Ateliers du Théâtre national de Bretagne

Special thanks to Albert Dichy, Charles Nauciel et Frédéric Pierrot, and the teams who supported the creation.

production Théâtre National de Bretagne, Rennes 
coproduction Maison de la culture d’Amiens
with the artistic participation of the Jeune Théâtre National and with the insertion device of the École du Nord, supported by the Région Hauts-de-France and the Ministry of Culture, with the support of the École de la Comédie de Saint-Étienne / DIESE # Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes

creation in September 2023

Biography of Arthur Nauzyciel

Arthur Nauzyciel is a director and actor, recently directed by Pascal Rambert, Olivier Assayas and Pascal Kirsch. Trained at Antoine Vitez's school at the Théâtre national de Chaillot, he seeks to make the theatre a space of reparation that is both intimate and historical, and to revive its ritual and collective aspects. Among his twenty or so productions are Jan Karski (Mon nom est une fiction) (2011), La Mouette, presented in the Cour d'Honneur in Avignon (2012), La Dame aux camélias (2018), Mes frères (2020), and La Ronde (2022), created at the National Theatre in Prague.

In 2015, he staged Jean Genet's Splendid's with American actors, recreated in video conference during the lockdown. From 2007 to 2016, he directed the Centre dramatique national d'Orléans, and since 2017 he has been the director of the Théâtre National de Bretagne and its school in Rennes.