Hécube, pas Hécube ・ Comédie-Française

For his first time working with the Troupe, Tiago Rodrigues, the director of the Avignon Festival, opted to tell the story of Hecuba.

With aesthetics revolving around directly addressing the audience, he mixes the timeless musings of an ancient Trojan woman with that of a contemporary one, an actress and mother facing similar challenges. Tiago Rodrigues usually says he does not write for the theatre, but for the actors. In this production, an actress is rehearsing Euripides’ Hecuba, more specifically, the part of Priam’s widow. Troy’s defeat in the war made her lose everything: her husband, freedom, and, the most painful thing of all, almost all her children. This woman wants to get justice.
The fictional tragedy is painfully close to that of the actress, whose autistic son faced systemic abuse against which she speaks up and tries to fight throughout the play. Alongside rehearsals, the audience witnesses the police investigation. The groundbreaking, crepuscular set highlights the juxtaposition of two worlds unsettlingly blurred into one another, the tragedy of the myth mixed with the pain of real life, the rules of theatre interplayed with that of justice. Following its June 2024 premiere at the Festival d’Avignon, the show is coming to the Salle Richelieu after touring France and Europe, from Greece to the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Serbia, Turkey, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Luxembourg…

NEW PRODUCTION

NEW ADDITION TO THE REPERTOIRE

Premiere on June 30, 2024 at the Carrière de Boulbon – Avignon Festival
A Comédie-Française production
Co-produced by the Avignon Festival
In partnership with the ThéâtredelaCité – CDN Toulouse-Occitanie

ON TOUR
FRANCE AND EUROPE
SEPT > JAN

ON TV
france.tv

ON THE RADIO
FRANCE CULTURE
Broadcast in 25

BOOKING OPENS ON
JAN 25