► Julius Caesar in Rennes
Arthur Nauzyciel’s Julius Caesar transposes the play to America in the 1960s. / TNB
Created in 2008 in Boston at the request of the very daring American Repertory Theater, this staging of Shakespeare’s tragedy by Arthur Nauzyciel chooses to move the Rome of the 1st century BCE to America in the 1960s. There we find the conspirators led by Brutus to assassinate Caesar, whose yoke became a dictatorship. Alongside the dazzling rhetoric of the English playwright, the show summons jazz performed live but also dance and sign language. A timeless reflection on power, its abuses, its fragility and the temptation that it never ceases to exert. Even if it means losing your mind, losing your life.
From January 9 to 17 National Theater of Brittany then on tour to Villeurbanne and to Seals.
► Just the end of the world at the Workshop
Director Johanny Bert takes on the play Juste la fin du monde, thirty years after the death of its author Jean-Luc Lagarce. / Cédric Rouillat
There are visits to his family that sound like a death knell, like a necessity prevented. In Just the end of the world, play by Jean-Luc Lagarce, Louis reunites with his family after twelve years of absence. He thinks about telling them of his illness and his imminent death, but his arrival revives too many painful memories and conflicts. So much so that Louis keeps his secret… At the Théâtre de l’Atelier, director Johanny Bert takes on this poignant text, thirty years after the death of its author. Vincent Dedienne takes on the role of the prodigal son returning to a house that is no longer his to leave heavy with what he was unable to say.
From January 15 to Workshop Theater in Paris (Vincent Dedienne also explores the writing notebooks of Jean-Luc Lagarce from January 23).
► tire, a modern Antigone in Dijon
In Taire, Tamara Al Saadi holds up a mirror between the destiny of Antigone and that of an adolescent girl in search of identity. / Geoffrey Posada Serguier
Revealed during the Impatience festival in 2018, Franco-Iraqi playwright Tamara Al Saadi loves the ancient, rebellious and mythical Antigone like a sister. In her new creation, the artist associated with the Théâtre de Dijon holds up a mirror between the destiny of the irreducible daughter of Oedipus and that of a modern-day teenager in search of identity, marked by her journey as a young person. girl placed by child welfare. Tire brings together 12 performers in a choral show – where music plays an important role – set in a refined setting to better accommodate what is happening between the characters as well as in the most intimate of each person.
From January 16 to 24 Dijon-Burgundy Theater Then on tour in Marseille, Nice, Châteauvallon-Liberté, Saint-Ouen and Saint-Denis.
► L’Intruse et The Blind at Vieux-Colombier
Tommy Millot directs L’Intruse and Les Aveugles, two plays written by Maurice Maeterlinck. / Comédie-Française
Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) regained the favor of theaters which dared to expose their audiences to his mysterious, hypnotic and sometimes evanescent language. Invited by the Comédie-Française, director Tommy Milliot, new director of the National Drama Center of Besançon, combines two one-act plays by his Belgian compatriot, written in 1890 when their author was not yet 30 years old. Blindness stretches a thread between them, sharpening the characters’ other senses, their hearing in particular. This new production, in the intimate Vieux-Colombier room, will applaud Claïna Clavaron, Dominique Parent and Thierry Godard.
From January 29 to March 2 Vieux-Colombierin Paris.
► Circonova Festival in Quimper
As part of the Circonova festival, the show Yé! du Circus Baobab will perform on three dates at the Théâtre de Cornouaille. / Vichy Opera
They come from Guinea and Belgium, France or Israel. And they can do it all: juggle, walk and more on a wire, throw knives, dance in the air and make people laugh on earth! For its 14th edition, the Circonova festival establishes its base camp in Quimper and extends to ten towns in southern Finistère. Ten shows are on the bill, like so many faces of current circus arts where virtuosity, poetry and humor intersect and intertwine. Here is Guy Waerenburgh, who blindly juggles a bucket on his head, or Liam Lelarge and Kim Marro, who infinitely vary the most acrobatic lifts…
From January 11 to February 2 Cornish Theaterin Quimper.
► William Forsythe makes Alsace dance
The ballet dancers of the Opéra national du Rhin, to the Quintet by William Forsythe. / Agathe Poupeney
While waiting for its promising Dance Fortnight, the 7th edition of which will be held from March 5 to 23, the ballet of the Opéra national du Rhin is putting on a program dedicated to the American choreographer William Forsythe. The evening is divided into three acts: quintet (1993) opens the ball, followed by Trio (1996) then Enemy in the Figure (1989), choreographed to music by Gavin Bryars, Beethoven and Thom Willems respectively. These contrasting pieces were created by the Frankfurt Ballet when William Forsythe was its artistic director. From three to eleven dancers, today they majestically showcase the brilliance, charisma and sensitivity of the Alsatian company.
From February 27 to March 16 Mulhouse and Strasbourg.
