Posted yesterday at 12:00 p.m.
Originally from Germany, Angela Konrad has worked for a long time in France and in Europe. The director has just been appointed director of Usine C. She will succeed Danièle de Fontenay next September. The news sparked a wave of enthusiasm.
“I was extremely touched by people’s reaction to my appointment,” says the new director. I received a lot of warm, touching, even loving testimonials. I did not expect that. »
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Angela Konrad (right) will succeed Danièle de Fontenay, who founded Usine C 25 years ago, in September.
I have the impression that it was not just the jury at Usine C that chose me, but the profession as a whole. This will carry me for years to come.
Angela Konrad, director
Angela Konrad already has both feet firmly anchored at Usine C, since she is presenting her adaptation of the first volume of Vernon Subutex, the trilogy by Virginie Despentes published between 2015 and 2017. It was the theatrical power of the novel that grabbed her. And the strength of his words. The author exposes the duality of our world, its misery and its greatness, in a breathtaking story crossed by stupidity and human suffering.
For Konrad, this trilogy (great literary success with 1.3 million copies sold) is “an eminently theatrical material”, through its oral language and its gallery of characters. The director called on a solid team of designers and performers. David Boutin plays the title role of the retired record store and fallen angel. He will be assisted by eight performers, including the virtuosos Anne-Marie Cadieux, Violette Chauveau and Dominique Quesnel, who embody several characters in this social fresco built around a “disoriented man in a broken society”.
The end of civilization
In the early 2000s, Vernon Subutex will lose his job, his home, his friends and his youthful illusions. Passionate about music, this owner of a record store in Paris had to close shop, as the music industry enters the digital age. At 45, he goes to crib with acquaintances before ending up on the street. “Rock was the last adventure of the civilized world”, he will say. His descent into hell will be brutal.
In the background, the story is an allegory of the post-punk movement. Born in revolt and anarchy, then recovered by consumer society.
The characters of the novel cross all classes and social backgrounds, but they have in common their past, their bygone youth. They are children of rock who have lost their illusions.
Angela Konrad, director
According to Angela Konrad, the feat of Vernon Subutex, is the sociological approach in fiction: “Despentes seeks to understand the situation without judging his characters. She presents them with their paradoxes, their contradictions, to better show human greatness and misery. »
lost illusions
Facing a very harsh and ruthless world, Vernon Subutex goes through hardships by always adapting to his environment. “Despentes said in an interview that Vernon is like a couch. He molds himself to everyone’s reality because he needs others. He is a passive observer who does not intervene. He’s just trying to survive…”
Critics have called his writing “neo-trash”. What does she think? “It’s the current society that is trash, Konrad nuance. The novelist talks about people she met in her youth. She observed them, listened to them, and she wonders how these people, whom she loved and admired, could have become so disillusioned in two, three decades. His pen dips at the same time on the side of the pamphlet, the novel, the screenplay, the thriller. All this with hyper-realistic descriptions. »
Angela Konrad negotiated the rights for the three volumes of Vernon Subutex. In the winter of 2024, with her company, La Fabrik, she plans to offer the complete trilogy at Usine C, where she will now exclusively produce her theatrical creations. Very busy with her new duties, she will have to leave her post and teaching at UQAM at the end of the summer.
When she obtained the rights from the French publisher, no further plans to adapt Vernon Subutex was in the air. Since then, Thomas Ostermeier has been interested in the work of Despentes. With La Schaubühne, the renowned German director will stage the first volume at the Odéon in Paris, almost on the same dates as the Montreal production. Does it bother the director who had the premiere? ” Not at all. I am happy to see other artists taking an interest in this work. It proves the richness and the contemporaneity of the novel, replies Konrad. However, it’s curious to present Virginie Despentes at the Odéon in Paris… in German with French surtitles… I can’t understand why no company in France showed interest. »
Vernon Subutex 1. From June 14 to 22, at Usine C.