Les Damnés

In two decades, the artistic director of the Toneelgroep in Amsterdam, whose field of exploration encompasses the world of theatre, film and opera, has explored a vast repertoire of works, from Sophocles and Shakespeare to Molière, Koltès, Cassavetes or Arthur Miller. The intention in this production is not to adapt the cult film, directed by Visconti, but “to return to the screenplay in order to stage it for theatre”. What Ivo van Hove retains from this sharply drawn chronicle of a family of industrialists during the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 in Germany is the ideological depravity of a company willing to makes the most poisonous alliances to benefit its own economic interests. “In my view, it is the celebration of evil”, says the director, whose work “always combines strong theatricality with the exploration of complex psychological zones and refined emotions”. Against a background of so-called “degenerate” music (Stravinsky, Schoenberg) or music favoured by the Nazis (Beethoven, Wagner), the blend of archive footage and on-the-spot recordings intensifies the tensions on stage where human relationships are murky and desire more perverted than ever.
This production, which will open the season at the Salle Richelieu, also marks the return of the Comédie-Française to the Avignon Festival after twenty-three years of absence.