2010 · Le Barbier de Séville · (The Barber of Seville) · Beaumarchais · Vigner (EN)

It was on the coast of Albania, a country bathed by the Adriatic Sea, that ERIC VIGNER dropped his anchor in April 2007 (introduction page 76-77). In Tirana precisely, its capital city founded in 1614 by the Ottoman general SULEJMAN PASHA. Today the country reveals itself after 50 years of tyranny. He was invited to work with the actors of the National Theater and to discover Albania, the mountains where the women dress in black, the seashore where the fishermen sing polyphonies and the city of Shkodra with Albania’s photographic treasure of the MARUBIs, three generations of photographers who took staged pictures of the Ottoman Albania…

Inspired especially by one photograph, ERIC VIGNER decided to adapt THE BARBER OF SEVILLE for the National Theater of Tirana and to put into resonance BEAUMARCHAIS’ Figaro - as a popular character prefiguring the French Revolution - and the history of Albania.

"In this black and white photograph, we can first look at what it represents : two Albanian officers are sitting at a table, they are wearing the traditional white skirts, the vests, their positions are like a mirror image, they are posing in front of a painted background. One can imagine that they are twins, or friends, brothers maybe. We can also look at this picture differently - its composition, its contrasts, the lights and the shadows, its Rorschach-like symmetry."
ÉRIC VIGNER

"THE BARBER OF SEVILLE, IN THE SOLITUDE OF COTTON FIELDS and OTHELLO follow each other, they communicate. THE BARBER is the comedy of jealousy and OTHELLO is the tragedy of jealousy. THE SOLITUDE is somewhere in between. All of these plays have to do with a blind spot and a paradox. Bartholo’s negation of the outside world in THE BARBER, the client’s negation of desire in THE SOLITUDE which results in proposing the ultimate weapon, and finally Othello’s blind spot which drives him to kill the object he loves. From THE BARBER to OTHELLO, the black hole extends and absorbs the narrative."
ÉV

BARTHOLO. What paper is that in your hand ?
ROSINE. Some verses of a song called “The useless Precaution” which my singing master gave me yesterday.
BARTHOLO. “The useless Precaution”, what’s that ?
ROSINE. It’s a new play.
BARTHOLO. Something dramatic ! Some new piece of folly ! What an ignorant Age we live in !...
ROSINE. You are always finding fault with the poor Age we live in.
BARTHOLO. I beg Pardon for taking so much liberty, but pray what has it produced ? A Variety of Follies, Free-thinking, Electricity, Attraction, Toleration, Inoculation, the Encyclopedy, and loads of nonsensical Plays. [1]

"A Venetian blind - "jealousy" in French - is an element of architecture (or a certain state of mind in French) which allows to see without being seen. It serves to change the vision : to alter light and shadow, the inside and the outside. For THE BARBER, I worked on a magnified lace, on perforations, black holes, the void, the unfolding of the creative process of the story. A multitude of variations and possible points of view."
ÉV

"The theater which I am interested in develops a form for the spectator to project himself into, to reinvent himself. For me, theater is not a place to come to in order to get answers, but a place where it is possible to revisit stories, our stories, the intimate, forgotten ones - in fact an unfamiliar place which the spectator can enter. Theater needs to carry in itself its counterpart, its paradox : "to be or not to be", to be one thing and at the same time something else. For example, when CÉZANNE paints apples and says "It is with an apple that I want to amaze Paris", his subject is not the apple. His subject is painting. The same goes for theater. It is not the story we are actually attached to, but the theater itself."
ÉV

[1] BEAUMARCHAIS, LE BARBIER DE SÉVILLE OU LA PRÉCAUTION INUTILE, 1775, Act I, Scene III

 

© Photography : Alain Fonteray, Marubi
Texts assembled by Jutta Johanna Weiss
Translation from the French by Herbert Kaiser
© CDDB-Théâtre de Lorient