At Usine C, we will dance in the fall and we will play in the spring. In April 2023, Brigitte Haentjens made an appointment with Shakespeare to create a show lasting nearly 6 hours including 5 plays and 25 actors on stage. A crazy adventure called Rome.
Posted at 9:00 a.m.
Brigitte Haentjens admits: “It’s a completely crazy adventure. But who else is better placed than the director of Richard III (Shakespeare) and Blood (Lars Noren) to tackle so many “Italian” tragedies of the English bard without falling, precisely, into madness.
The show Rome includes parts The Rape of Lucretius, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra and Titus Andronicus. In a framework ranging from “dictatorship to anarchy”, Jean-Marc Dalpé’s translation will showcase the talents of 25 performers, approximately half of whom come from the next generation.
“Jean-Marc did an exceptional job. He makes it a very lively work by playing on the levels of language. Then, we took three years to tighten the texts without detracting from the richness of the subject, ”says the director.
These two longtime friends didn’t feel the need to adapt or even update the play.
“Shakespeare has an unrivaled depth in terms of dramaturgy, recalls Brigitte Haentjens. I wanted to talk about the notions of power and democracy in a world, ours, which is delusional. But with Shakespeare, it’s never one-dimensional, and you don’t teach anyone a lesson. »
Always accomplices
We will obviously find on stage some of the usual accomplices of the one who has more than 50 productions to her credit: Sébastien Ricard, Anne-Marie Cadieux, Marc Béland, Céline Bonnier, Paul Ahmarani and Sylvie Drapeau, in particular. In the design, other long-term colleagues: the scenographer Anick La Bissonnière and the musician Bernard Falaise.
PHOTO BERNARD BRAULT, PRESS ARCHIVES
Brigitte Haentjens brought together many actors on the project Romeincluding several long-time collaborators, such as Sébastien Ricard, whom she had directed in Richard III.
The band will reunite soon to explore some ideas in a two-week lab, but rehearsals will begin in August. The show Rome will then be presented from April 5 to 16, 2023.
One year from the creation, Brigitte Haentjens says she feels some anxiety in the face of this great challenge that awaits her.
“But we have to move forward and make people work. It is in the theater that artists can dig their true profession. Working with young people from the National Theater School this year, I realized that despite our age difference, we still share the same passion. For me, it’s a search for light to be with artists on stage. »
A season of big names
In addition, the Usine C season will open next October with the return of the great Franco-Austrian director and choreographer Gisèle Vienne (The Ventriloquists Convention and Jerk). His most recent show, CROWDis described as a “techno surge” for 15 dancers.
In November, Marie Chouinard will then present Hieronymus Bosch: The Garden of Earthly Delights. Created in 2016 in the Netherlands, this choreography pays homage to the Dutch painter’s triptych with a dozen performers on stage.
Finally, in February 2023, just before the project Rome by Brigitte Haentjens, Usine C will host The walker’s signal, from the Belgians of Raoul Collectif. In a grand banquet resembling the end of the world where everything is permitted, both Don Quixote and Antigone are summoned.
This is the last season concocted by the founder and general and artistic director of Usine C, Danièle de Fontenay, who announced her departure last December, after more than 25 years at the head of this multidisciplinary theater of the Centre-Sud of Montreal. It is not yet known who will replace her.