A LITTLE IS ENOUGH
MY SUICIDE
“On November 24, I was on the metro in Paris. A woman, with graying straw hair, a soiled coat and an outdated bag slung over her shoulder, goes up to Jaurès. In a playful voice she introduces herself and asks for a few coins to help her and to eat. Her name is Chantal and she displays a frank smile despite the jaded looks, already too accustomed to these modern “hungers”. I look at her thinking of Georgette, the character in Il suffice de peu. I tell myself that if Georgette existed in real life, it could be this woman. She is luminous beneath her decrepitude... She approaches me, with a good step, throws her speech at me, with a good face and her laughing eyes. I am moved but also amused. I give him some coins. She thanks me and hands me a “gift” paper. I thank her in turn and take a look at this unexpected present as I go down to the platform. I only see one word, in red: “Suicide”. A small leaflet from an association. I walk trembling towards the street, tears lingering.
There you go... These two minutes had just summed up everything that for several weeks I had ventured to put down on paper. »
Marie-Pierre Mazzarini
Staging Claudia Calvier Primus
Choreography
Ana Talabard
With
Marie-Pierre Mazzarini & Sullivan Da Silva
Original music
At the LOop
Video creation
Singapore 1939 production & Lydie Tremblet
PRESENTATION
The Swiss Henri Roorda wrote My Suicide in 1925, before actually ending his life. In this final text, he explains in a paradoxical and personal tone that he describes with the oxymoron "joyful pessimism", the reasons which lead him to commit such a gesture. Disillusioned and valiant at the same time, he constructs his thoughts; How to live “in a world where we must devote our youth to preparing for our old age”? Or how can you imagine spending your life being careful, thrifty, cautious, needy? This prospect is unbearable for Roorda who dreams of idleness, of physical and intellectual enjoyment. However, far from constructing a melancholy thought, he never ceases to let a funny and dynamic verve flow here and there. With his cynicism, he entertains his reader who cannot help but read, implicitly, the long and bitter daily experience of human misfortune. In this, Roorda can be compared to Chekhov.
The Swiss author gives his personal experience a universal scope. He appeals to those who cannot find their place in a society where nothing has been imagined for them. The authentication process is underway for the reader and proves to be all the easier as the text echoes in a disturbing way to our world and our current concerns. Indeed, Roorda has been writing since a troubled period; that which precedes the great crisis of 1929. The modernity of the text is undoubtedly due to the proximity of these two times of crisis, of these two pessimistic and not very joyful eras where the economy is corrupting humanity.
Disrespectful, provocative, Roorda at the time of closing his journey as a writer and a man concludes:
“I had a completely wrong idea of life. I attached far too much importance to what is exceptional: enthusiasm, exaltation, intoxication. What takes up almost all the space in a human life are the daily and monotonous tasks, these are the hours when we wait, the hours when nothing happens. The normal man is the one who knows how to vegetate.”
"
He was a great comedian, desperate, tolerant, devastatingly lucid, as cheerful as a rabbit. Why is he so forgotten? Perhaps because he was Swiss, and, as a cliché helps, we don't expect to hear a great burst of laughter in Switzerland. (…) For him, ignorance was not the greatest of evils: it was above all necessary to “unburden the skulls”.
Nothing has changed.
Nothing changed.
"
Jean-Luc Porquet, The Chained Duck
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
By Charles Dickens
Musical tale
Staged and told
byMarie-Pierre Mazzarini
Musical creation of
Charles Kieny
All audiences, recommended from 7 years old
Duration
45 minutes
Charles Dickens loves ghost stories. Its ghosts are sometimes terribly disturbing and sometimes comical. A Christmas Carol tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an old Harpagon. Nothing matters to him but exploiting his neighbor, and in particular Bob Cratchit, his clerk. He hates everything, and especially Christmas, this “day when you find yourself a year older and not an hour richer”.
In short, Scrooge is awful.
One Christmas Eve, he receives a visit from Jacob Marley, his former partner... who has been dead for seven years. Marley's ghost comes to warn him: Scrooge must change, otherwise he will carry the chains of remorse for eternity. He will also receive a visit from three ghosts, those of Christmas past, Christmas present and Christmas to come, who will make him understand that a rapid redemption is necessary...
A moment full of humor, suspense, tenderness and humanity.