Trust [EN]

Trust [EN]

by Falk Richter

Objet nocturne numéro 

24
90'
Premiered in 2014 - A show in French with English surtitles

Notes & textes 

INTRODUCTION

The theatrical form Groupe Merci has long been interested in “hunts down” any chance to deal with politics: Désobéissance (2008), Génie du proxénétisme (2010), À notre chère disparue, la Démocratie (2011).
We go on a quest for forms that are still able to tackle the sensitive issue of “political temporizing.” For we notice our democratic institutions settle for “general consensus” while derealization is at work.
It is thus the duty of theatre to account for that “system-inherent catastrophe”, to use playwright Falk Richter’s formula. 
So, thanks to Richter, who addresses the contemporary “Woyzecks” living before our eyes in a worn-out world and in a perpetual state of decompensation, we will exhibit new contemporary figures, their distress and inner collapses.
Exhibit their mental breakdown.

Joël FESEL

_

Stage Director’s Statement

Falk Richter’s play is a radiography of today’s psyches scrutinized with a magnifying glass.

You’ll see fragmented identities and their vain attempts at putting their scattered bits together (so high the depersonalization risk);
You’ll see loss of confidence;
You’ll see fear for the future (since everything is insecure—take for instance the collapsing value of money);
You’ll see that fear to lose that value, namely (since today the Market has become the ultimate benchmark);
You’ll see the fear of being nothing (pressured as we are to “be ourselves, fulfill ourselves and find our path in life”, to “earn a living” in spite of the difficulty of living an “efficient” life);
You’ll see the fear of not being on top of one’s game (the bar is set so high);
You’ll see fear for freedom: since everything seems possible choosing becomes impossible (all the more so as economic warfare is getting tougher);
You’ll see the paradoxical anxiety of being left without a God, a master, or any third party (where is authority?);
You’ll see loss of sex drive (we dream of absoluteness so much);
You’ll see their deceiving dreams (becoming an icon, a star, an image) to be one of those who succeed under the limelight;
You’ll see extreme loneliness;
You’ll see their regressive narcissism, which led them to turn back the hands of time to return to the times before they were even born, at the risk of disappearing;
You’ll see extreme loneliness…

Solange OSWALD

_

Excerpt

I’M LIKE MONEY
“I HAVE NOTHING TO GO ON, I just don’t, I’M LIKE MONEY damn, I’m like money, I’m everything and everywhere and no one can gauge my value and every day you have to check if I’m still worth something because it changes every day, my worth, my relationship to other people, and I’m in constant danger of becoming worthless over night, I’m in constant danger of collapsing, I’M LIKE MONEY, everyone wants me and lots of it but I don’t manage to make anyone happy even if that’s what they think, and I can go anywhere, I can no longer gauge my value because there are no longer any guidelines, they’re in the process of disintegrating, I’M LIKE MONEY.”

Générique 

Credits

Text:
Falk RICHTER
(English edition) Translated from German by Maya Zade,
Frankfurt: S. Fischer Verlag, 2009
(French edition)Traduit de l’allemand par Anne MONFORT,
L’Arche Éditeur, coll. scène ouverte, 2010
(L’Arche est éditeur et agent théâtral du texte représenté).

A Groupe Merci creation
Nocturnal Object No.24

Conception, stage design: Solange OSWALD, Joël FESEL
Artistic collaboration: Pierre DÉAUX
Playwriting: Marie-Laure HÉE
Stage Assistant: Coline CHINAL PERNIN
Light design and general director: Cyril MONTEIL
Music: Boris BILLIER
Stage Management: Silvio MARTINI
Distribution: Céline MAUFRA

Cast:
Catherine BEILIN
Georges CAMPAGNAC
Pierre DÉAUX
Pierre-Jean ÉTIENNE
Gaetano GIUNTA
Sacha SAILLE
Louise TARDIF

Production:
Groupe Merci
coproduction avec Pronomade(s) en Haute Garonne – Centre National des Arts de la Rue,
Le Parapluie – Centre International de Création Artistique, Aurillac,
Les Treize Arches – Scène conventionnée de Brive,
Le Parvis – Scène Nationale Tarbes-Pyrénées,
L’Estive – Scène Nationale de Foix et de l’Ariège.

Support:
Adami,
Ville de Toulouse,
Conseil Général de la Haute-Garonne,
Région Midi-Pyrénées.

Artistic Residency:
Le Parapluie – Centre International de Création Artistique, Aurillac,
Pronomade(s) en Haute Garonne – Centre National des Arts de la Rue,
Théâtre National de Toulouse.

The play premiered in August 2014 during Aurillac International Street Theatre Festival.

Parfums de presse 

What Does the Press Say?

«In Such an Absurd World…

With the help of Joël Fesel, her long-time accomplice, Solange Oswald stages Falk Richter’s “Trust”. The play is on at TNT until Friday. According to Oswald, it is “a radiography of today’s psyches scrutinized with a magnifying glass.” In a smothering limited space, shattered characters—these tormented beings—run in circles, stuck as they are between dream and reality, sometimes caught in states of extreme excitement and sometimes wrecked. They’re wearing out, they stumble, and their madness contaminates all their words, making them both funny and mundane to us.  

They show who they are, they show off even, mimicking their contemporaries’ narcissism, but they’re lost souls. The causes? The absurdity of our time. A shower of books symbolizes thinking, knowledge, art, and pervades the stage. And what do the characters make of the books? Nothing. They do not know how to use them so as to make a better world. All this is wrecked, annihilated by the money rush, consumption, and the pervasiveness of virtuality. A character films herself in close-up, as people shoot selfies. Their crises and discouragement let their flickering selves show: people who try to find themselves and who cannot but feel an uncanny feeling towards the meaningless reality?

“You just wake up one morning and you don’t know neither who you are, nor what you’re worth,” Flesel explains, “nor who the person sharing your life is, even though you originally chose that person.” Are love stories worth all the personal involvement they imply? That’s life and that’s the show Groupe Merci presents; a show touching on a sore spot, as usual. »

A.H.
La Dépêche, October 28, 2014