Eugène Ionesco: THE CHAIRS
National Theatre of Luxembourg (Luxembourg)
1h 15’ without intermission
In French with Hungarian, Romanian and English subtitles.
Cast: Oana Pellea, Patrick Le Mauff
Directed by Gábor Tompa
Set and costume designer: Dragos Buhagiar
Music and sound effects: Rene Nuss
Dramaturgy: Florian Hirsch
Director’s assistant: Maximilien Ludovicy
Intern: Maria Binica
Production manager: Antonia Kohler
Old Man: Your Majesty, my wife and myself have nothing more to ask of life. Our existence can come to an end in this apotheosis. Thanks be to heaven who has granted us such long and peaceful years. ..My life has been filled to overflowing. My mission is accomplished. I will not have lived in vain, since my message will be revealed to the world. ..To the world, or rather to what is left of it!
In this play, Bertrand Poirot-Delpech saw in 1961 "the most accomplished of modern tragedies". Ionesco's third play, created in 1952, has become an undeniable success. The subject of The Chairs is, as the author says, "the ontological void": but it is also a personal drama, the mirror of a conscience. One finds in it the nostalgia of childhood, the feeling of guilt, the horror of old age and death. It is still a comedy which, very often, excites laughter by its clowning, its puns, its parodies, its pirouettes. It is a ballet: that of chairs piled up in the accelerated movement of a fantastic whirlpool, and which are left empty.
Patrick Le Mauff is an actor and director. At the end of the 1970s, he co-founded the Attroupement company with Denis Guénoun and Bernard Bloch, and then the Attroupement 2. He then founded the Place Publique company, whose objective was to create theatre under a big top. He staged Brecht, Turini, Schoenberg... At the same time, he has an acting career, in theatre and cinema. Regularly associated with the creations of Wajdi Mouawad, whose emergence he supported in Europe, Patrick Le Mauff plays in Littoral and Forêts. From 2000 to 2006, he was the director of the Francophonies festival in Limousin.
Romanian-born actress Oana Pellea has received numerous awards for her work in theatre and film. Born in Bucharest in 1962, she studied at the Romanian Academy of Theatre and Cinema before acting in numerous theatre and film productions. Most recently, Oana Pellea won the Best Actress Award from the Union of Romanian Theatres (UNITER) and received the Romanian Cultural Foundation's Award for Outstanding International Career. She has had the honor of representing Romania in several international theatre festivals, including the annual festival of The Union of European Theatres (UTE).
A production of Théâtre National du Luxembourg
With the support of the French Institute of Luxembourg, the Romanian Embassy in Luxembourg and the Romanian Cultural Center in Brussels
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