Le Testament de Marie

These are the words of Mary, a mother whose son was taken from her and abandoned to the mob. A woman who now lives in exile, watched over by men who seek to preserve the sacred memory of her son. While myths rise up like walls around her, she clings to the truth of her life. Revealing her own humanity in a period of confusion and change, she offers the tender and heart-breaking exploration of a mother’s grief.Staged by British director Deborah Warner, The Testament of Mary is adapted from the novel by Colm Tóibín that presents the story of the Virgin Mary as one of loss rather than of salvation and reveals the humanity of a silent icon.For her first collaboration with the Comédie-Française, in co-production with the Odéon, Deborah Warner is confiding this partition to Dominique Blanc, a pensionnaire of the Troupe with whom she has already worked. Together they will pursue a project initiated in 2013 with the actress Fiona Shaw on Broadway and continued in London. For the Paris production, the director is interested in the dialogue that can be established between the performance of the actress and the French audience: “In the silence of space, thoughts roll around and resonate. Between protest, quest and questioning, every spectator finds his or her vision of that story confronted with the possibility of a different reality.”