Please Please Please

2019
Show/ Dance/ Theater In this production, the encounter between Mathilde Monnier and La Ribot’s poetic choreographic expressions and the theatrical language of Tiago Rodrigues are used as the starting point for creating a piece of work driven by the urgency of a world to come. What worlds, societies and stories will we be handing down […]

Show/ Dance/ Theater

In this production, the encounter between Mathilde Monnier and La Ribot’s poetic choreographic expressions and the theatrical language of Tiago Rodrigues are used as the starting point for creating a piece of work driven by the urgency of a world to come. What worlds, societies and stories will we be handing down to our descendants? Which changes of visions on the idea of hope divide the generations? Inspired by these questions that are as crucial as they are intimate and universal, Please Please Please takes us on a breathtaking journey in three parts.

With their imaginations, experiences, wishes and reminiscences crystallized in the texts by the director and dramaturge Tiago Rodrigues, the performer-choreographers Mathilde Monnier and La Ribot invent a form of loving consolation. In the face of a coming demise and the tide-like swell of fear. Set to a hypnotic, drum- led, breathy pulse the two artists devour each other amidst a ritornello-like pattern of repeated gestures and postures. Taking turns, they shape the text-matter of stories along the way. Their mechanic, truncated, jolted rhythm seems to be in keeping with the fragmentary outpourings of the world. And yet this is a place where reflection and the fantastical can expand and spread, flourishing all the while. It might be a waitress scattering the ashes of Hiroshima across the desert or the queen of a slow, underground world. Or a poignant letter to a father, diametrically opposed, seemingly, to the adolescent daughter. With the end of each narrative section comes an about-turn, a surprise.
From a Kafka-like nightmare of a “maxi-monster” beached on the stage, comes a shapeless form – of a planet or a lifeless worm. As for cockroaches, they are the most common form of insect with the ability to survive in the event of humanity’s disappearance. La Ribot and Monnier conjure them up by assembling, in a frenetic way, relics of dances which have marked the different eras and their repertories. All this is set to string quartet pieces by Bartok, their dizzying rhythmic flourishes tinged with popular dance evoking the percussions. For the third sequence, a dialogue is put in place between a mother and her new-born daughter. One takes an oath to eternally protect the flesh of her flesh and blood. The other shirks away, for her progenitor, grown old in a world bound for the unlivable. The handing down process between generations turns into rebellion – in the face of extinction.
Putting words and bodies to a marathon-like test of endurance, the La Ribot, Monnier and Rodrigues team of existentialists excels in bringing to light and questioning the foundations of stage-based constructions/illusions as well as psychological, social and lexical ones. Their DNA, said, thought, and danced before us, matches fragile resistance with that of the uncertainty of our lives.

Bertrand Tappolet

credits

Please Please Please
un spectacle de La Ribot - Mathilde Monnier - Tiago Rodrigues
avec La Ribot, Mathilde Monnier
lumière Éric Wurtz
traduction Thomas Resendes
scénographie Annie Tolleter
réalisation scénographie Christian Frappereau, Mathilde Monier
costumes La Ribot, Mathilde Monnier
réalisation costumes Marion Schmid, Letizia Compitiello
création musique et régie son Nicolas Houssin
direction technique et régie lumière Marie Prédour
régie plateau Guillaume Defontaine
chargée de production Hélène Moulin
diffusion internationale Julie Le Gall – Bureau Cokot
production Nicolas Roux
remerciements Magda Bizarro
Production déléguée Le Quai Centre Dramatique National Angers Pays de la Loire
Avec le soutien de la Fondation d’entreprise Hermès dans le cadre de son programme New Settings
En coproduction avec Teatros del Canal, Madrid (Espagne) ; Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne (Suisse) ; Les Spectacles vivants – Centre Pompidou ; Festival d’Automne à Paris ; Comédie de Genève (Suisse) ; Teatro Nacional D. Maria II, Lisbonne (Portugal) ; Teatro Municipal do Porto (Portugal) ; Le Parvis scène nationale Tarbes Pyrénées ; Theaterfestival Boulevard (Pays-Bas) ; Les Hivernales - CDCN d’Avignon ; BIT Teatergarasjen, Bergen (Norvège) ;
Compagnie MM ; La Ribot-Genève. Avec le soutien de OPART/Estúdios Victor Córdon et du CND Centre national de la Danse – Pantin.
durée estimée 1h

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