« Vice/Versa »

First production / Theatre

18, 19 & 20 june 08 at 7.30pm

FROM THE FRENCH TRANSLATION CALLED VICE-VERSA OF WILL SELF’S ENGLISH NOVEL COCK AND BULL
+ DIRECTED BY ILDI! ELDI

This is a crazy story. An ordinary man is suddenly provided with extraordinary attributes. Will Self, the enfant terrible of contemporary British literature, has written a novel that is both humoristic and surreal. Since literature lets readers come up with their own images, how do you project that “thing” on a theatre stage? How do you play with rich sexual differences and make light of them, and of the complexes and desires within us? How do you represent the fantasy and the intimate without taboo or vulgarity? And how do make each second of the theatre experience a real pleasure? As far as Ildi ! eldi is concerned, it’s all about wit and comedy.

See synopsis (pdf / 50 KB) !In french!

Introduction

"We realised that farce is totally magic tool allowing us to talk about absolutely everything, as if it is light, we are willing to accept everything, we’ll take it right to the stomach, it goes directly through our pores and less through our intellect, as if smiling was a direct passage into the senses. Something mysterious happens anyway, we don’t know what exactly, but when we smile we are ready to hear anything. That is when it starts to get more complicated: how do you not fall back into stupidity, vulgarity and heavy-handedness? You have to find a festive spirit. One of the aims of our collective is to try to create a theatre experience the way you prepare a party, to organise the event to make people dance, so that their privacy implodes at a certain point. The aim is to create a space where everything is geared towards the audience, where the show is also outside the stage, where actors look at the spectators, in order to achieve a rare moment when the audience is dancing still. We have slowly realised that form, as in the aesthetics, the packaging, was the least of our concerns. Form is but the content brought up to the surface, so if we focus on the meaning, the surface will materialize almost by itself." Ildi ! eldi 

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Excerpt 

"...Quand bien même ces réflexions rationelles pourraient aider Alan à sortir du labyrinthe psychologique dans lequel il s'est aventuré à dix heures moins dix, le voilà soudain bloqué tout net par un nouvel élan lubrique. Elan qui lui impose une vision de l'anatomie de Bull, baignant dans une lumière toute différente, bijou rose nacré tendrement érotique... Alan voit Bull posant nu dans l'ombre zébrée des stores vénitiens : un peu comme Richard Gere dans American Gigolo. Il pivote gracieusement sur une jambe, tel un discobol, présentant le creux de son genou au regard du voyeur muet. Son pubis numéro deux, enserré dans une toute petite culotte..." “Cock and Bull", Will Self

Biography

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Cast and crew & thanks

Free Adaptation: Sophie Cattani, François Sabourin.
With Sophie Cattani, François Sabourin, Antoine Oppenheim.
Booking Agent: Gilles Morel.

Coproduced by Les Subsistances / Lyon / France.