With Hélène Alexandridis, Alexandra Blajovici, Cyril Bothorel, Marie Cariès, Claude Duparfait, Olivier Dupuy, Raoul Fernandez, Paul Fougère, Damien Gabriac, Anaïs Muller, Ysanis Padonou, Sarah Plume, Tatia Tsuladze, Laurent Ziserman

L’Hôtel du Libre-Échange follows the wanderings of two couples in a wild theatrical machine, whose fuel is of course adultery. While Monsieur Pinglet and Madame Paillardin are hyper sexual, their spouses are not so much the same. By creating a series of intense traps and pitfalls, Feydeau throws his characters into a genuine ballet of frustrations, where the small, aptly named hotel used for romantic trysts is the backdrop. Stanislas Nordey leads fourteen actors and actresses through this crazed bourgeois world, while working in the language of vaudeville. It is more than obvious why the director, with the play’s quasi-manic structure that’s forever on the edge of imploding, is drawn to the comic genius of Feydeau.

Cast

artistic collaborator Claire Ingrid Cottenceau
set design Emmanuel Clolus
lighting Philippe Berthomé
costumes Raoul Fernandez
choreography Loïc Touzé
music Olivier Mellano


production MC2: Maison de la Culture de Grenoble - scène nationale

coproduction Compagnie Stanislas Nordey, Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, Théâtre de Liège - DC&J Création, Célestins - Théâtre de Lyon, Bonlieu - scène nationale Annecy, Théâtre de Lorient - centre dramatique national

with the support of the Belgian Federal Government Tax Shelter and Inver Tax Shelter

L'Hôtel du Libre-Échange by Georges Feydeau, Gallimard, Folio théâtre, 2000

creation in March 2025

Biography of Stanislas Nordey

Director, actor and teacher, an insatiable reader and discoverer of texts, Stanislas Nordey has mainly directed contemporary authors since his debut in 1991. He has directed Pasolini, Gabily, Karge, Schwab, Lagarce, Mouawad, Crimp, Handke, Richter, and more recently Miano, Galea, Angot, NDiaye, whose Berlin mon garçon he presented at the Odéon in 2021. He has acted under the direction of Letailleur, Théron, Mouawad, Rambert, Vassiliev, Richter, Vigner, Meininger and sometimes in his own shows. Co-director with Valérie Lang of the Théâtre Gérard Philipe CDN de Saint-Denis from 1998 to 2001, he also directed the Théâtre national de Strasbourg and its School from 2014 to 2023, working with twenty-three artists.


After unsuccessfully trying his hand at acting, Georges Feydeau quickly found success as a playwright. At the turn of the century, the triumphs of L'Hôtel du Libre-Échange, Un fil à la patte, Le Dindon and La Dame de chez Maxim established him as the ‘king of vaudeville’. His last plays, On purge bébé and Mais n'te promène donc pas toute nue, ferociously attacked the bourgeois family. In 1909, after a violent domestic dispute, he moved into a Parisian palace, where he stayed for ten years. In 1919, his children had him committed for mental problems caused by syphilis. Suffering from delirium and paranoia, he died two years later at the age of fifty-eight.