2008 · Dans la solitude des champs de coton · Koltès · Vigner (EN)
"If you walk outside, at this hour and in this place, it’s because you desire something which you do not have, and this thing, me, I can provide it for you; because if I was at this place long before you and will be here long after you, and if at this very hour the savage relationship between men and animals doesn’t chase me away, it’s because I have what’s necessary to satisfy the desire which passes in front of me; it’s like a weight which I need to get rid of on whomever, man or animal, who passes in front of me." [1]
In April 2008, VIGNER directed he world premiere of the American translation of IN THE SOLITUDE OF COTTON FIELDS by BERNARD-MARIE KOLTÈS at the 7 Stages Theatre in Atlanta, with the American actors DEL HAMILTON and ISMA'IL IBN CONNER. IN THE SOLITUDE OF COTTON FIELDS is the first of a cycle of new translations of KOLTÈS plays by ISMA'IL IBN CONNER in the frame of the U.S. KOLTÈS PROJECT, one of the most ambitious artistic partnerships between France and the U.S. in the field of contemporary theatre.
"Forty years after the assassination of MARTIN LUTHER KING (April 4, 1968), VIGNER's mise-en-scène de-emphasizes the location and focuses on the history - or rather, the histories of BMK and MLK - and makes all the world the stage (theatrum mundi), calling in question the world and the dividing lines between individuals and peoples, dividing lines that still exist after the advent of civil rights, the end of segregation, or apartheid, in the United States and indeed all over the world." [2]
"The play takes a wordless meeting between two men and puts it under a magnifying glass, the technique comparable to a frame-by-frame analysis of a short but significant piece of film. SOLITUDE's approach to minute details and internal monologues echoes stream-of-consciousness novelists such as JAMES JOYCE and VIRGINIA WOOLF, as well as contemporary miniaturists such as NICHOLSON BAKER. A writer looking at the interaction between two people could find a wealth of material in an attached couple's loving relationship, or a death struggle between two soldiers on a battlefield."
CURT HOLMAN, Creative Loafing Atlanta
"Two men who cross don’t have any other choice but to strike out at each other, with the violence of an enemy or the gentleness of a brother." [1]
"For THE SOLITUDE with American actors in Atlanta, ÉRIC VIGNER designed lines on the stage floor which recall a boxing ring. KOLTÈS’ language seemed enriched by the new American translation. ISMA' IL IBN CONNER, the actor-translator who interpreted the dealer, spoke the text in a very rhythmical way. He walked on a sort of borderline which the text talks about, between poetical height and trivial offense. Listening to the incantatory strength of the American language one can’t forget that KOLTÈS always said that he wanted to write for actors such as ROBERT DE NIRO. The confrontation recalled a street battle - a rhetorically emphasized provocation. ÉRIC VIGNER conjured up the black American mythology by transposing the text into musical beat. We can suddenly imagine the client’s death as well as his reawakening."
SERGE SAADA, Alternatives Théâtrales, 1er trimestre 2010
"The ‘coup fantôme’ (phantom punch) is an expression coined by BERNARD-MARIE KOLTÈS regarding MOHAMMED ALI. MOHAMMED ALI’s punches came so fast that the only thing spectators saw was his opponent’s body dropping to the floor – they hadn’t even seen the punch, and for this reason people suspected that his fights were rigged. The phantom punch, then, was not a matter of brute force or muscular strength but one of the speed and force behind the blow. KOLTÈS’ text is somehow the proof, the replica, of Ali’s fights – of a force whose origin one is never aware of, where distances and the positions of the persons involved are suggestive of the tension inherent in the text. The ‘coup fantôme’ has all the force of literary desire: something written that isn’t read immediately but which strikes the reader unawares." [3]
© Photography : Alain Fonteray, John Nowak
Texts assembled by Jutta Johanna Weiss
Translation from the French by Herbert Kaiser
© CDDB-Théâtre de Lorient
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