Love as a political enterprise
"Charriot's merit : she liberates Ivanov from the eternal lament of its depressed protagonist.”
Anton Tsechov's Ivanov is hot again : three years ago the piece was pulled out of the back closet by theatre Malpertuis, this spring by the Dutch director Nina Spijkers and at NEXT the French-Swiss theatre maker Emilie Carriot presents her version of it.
Charriot is captivated by the political dimension of the love that Ivanov breathes and places marriage at the centre of attention. How is it possible that such an institution is still standing in today's society ?
Ivanov is often approached psychologically, eagerly milking the innermost feelings of the depressed protagonist. Charriot, however, completely goes for the sociological dimension. Fascinated by marriage as a game of power relations, she wants to examine how love between two persons also reveals the condition of a community.
Charriot shifts the attention from the male protagonist to the women who surround him. To Sasha for example, who considers love as a political weapon, a motor of change.
Thus she also challenges the classical play by Tsjechov in a feminist way. Three years ago Charriot was not accidentally noticed with her debut King Kong Théorie, an adaptation of the manifesto of the same name by Virginie Despentes : a model of the “muscled feminism”. Also Ivanov bathes in this vibe.
Ivanov is also a celebration of theatre lighting, an often forgotten métier. Charriot is fascinated by the way light works on an actor and she also wants to communicate this fascination “We talk nineteen to the dozen about dramaturgy, mise en scène and acting but we hardly speak about lighting. That's a shame.” Hopefully Ivanov and the lighting of Yan Godat can really make a change here.
DIRECTION Émilie Charriot WITH Pierre-Isaïe Duc, Marie-Madeleine Pasquier, Valeria Bertolotto, Lola Giouse, Tomas Gonzalez, François Herpeux TRANSLATION Françoise Morvan, André Markowicz ADAPTATION Emilie Charriot ASSISTANT DIRECTION Marie Ripoll OUTSIDE ADVICE Delphine Rosay ARTISTIC COLLABORATION Valérianne Poidevin DRAMATURGICAL COLLABORATION Igor Cardellini PHYSICAL TRAINING Géraldine Chollet COSTUME DESIGN Anna Van Brée LIGHT Yan Godat PHOTOGRAPH Nora Rupp ADMINISTRATION, PRODUCTION Virginie Lauwerier ACCOUNTING Christèle Fürbringer PRODUCTION compagnie Émilie Charriot COPRODUCTION Arsenic - Centre d’art scénique contemporain - Lausanne,Le Théâtre Saint-Gervais - Genève, Théâtre Les Halles - Sierre, Fédération des coopératives Migros soutiens Loterie Romande, Ville de Lausanne, Pro Helvetia - Fondation suisse pour la culture, Corodis, Fondation Jan Michalski, Pour-cent culturel Migros, Fondation Nestlé pour l’Art, Migros Vaud, SIS./ The Emilie Charriot company has been granted the Prairie 2016-2019 for innovative theatre and dance companies. The Emilie Charriot company has been given a bond a trust by the city of Lausanne from 2017 to 2020. Émilie Charriot is a European Creative Hub artist (le phénix scène nationale Valenciennes). She belongs to the Campus section.
