From Avignon, she only retains beautiful memories. It was there that, in 2017, the then 36-year-old director created “Saïgon”, the show which earned her national and international recognition. At the time, Caroline Guiela Nguyen struck a major blow with these intersecting stories, between France and Vietnam, of uprooted people in search of identity. “We have just played the 220th in Milan! » she rejoices. Since then, she has returned to Avignon to present “Fraternité” in 2021, has produced a short film, a play at the Schaubühne in Berlin with German actors, then campaigned to take the helm of the National Theater of Strasbourg (TNS), the one of which she was a student between 2005 and 2009. Appointed last summer, Caroline left the Parisian suburbs to settle with her family in Alsace.
“Leading the TNS means leading a team of 100 people whose primary mission is to defend creation so that it can reach as many people as possible. It is also a school with 53 young artists who train in all performing arts professions. I built the next season around the question: ‘When will we finally be reunited!’ Artists, like Dorothée Munyaneza, the FASP collective, Claire Lasne Darcueil or Marvin M’toumo, carry committed stories, but above all they want to create commonality rather than division. They have important and urgent words to tell the audience. And the period of political violence and uncertainty that we are experiencing reassures me in all the choices we have made over the past 10 months. »
Elements of the research carried out by Caroline Guiela Nguyen at the Alençon Lace Museum.
© Paris Match
This dress allows me to evoke the work that will crush my characters.
Caroline Guiela Nguyen
But for now, it is “Lacrima” which occupies his mind, a few days before the curtain rises in the city of the popes. “It’s always an immense stress, Avignon, even if it’s a joyful stress. » This time, Caroline Guiela Nguyen was interested in fashion and its manufactures. “I imagined that the Princess of England was ordering her wedding outfit from a French haute couture house. From there, we follow the making of the dress between three spaces: Paris, for the styling, Alençon, where women make the lace, and finally Bombay, where all the embroidery is done by Muslim men with immense know-how. » As always, she proceeds as a journalist: she goes into the field to collect what people have to say, questions her “living matter” before starting to write her piece. “This dress allows me to evoke work, a value held very high by my characters and which, for most of them, will crush them. I also believe that it is a show that talks about secrecy and violence, a theme that has run through all my plays. »
Caroline Guiela Nguyen has nothing to hide. From her origins, which she has spoken about many times, to her recent motherhood, she does theater not to reveal herself but to confront our inner torments with our own limits. Basically, it invites us to question the scale of our values and to choose what seems most important: living together, fraternity? Or egotism and the (ephemeral) desire to shine? Above all, his theater aims to reach an audience who are not used to locking themselves up for three hours in a dark room. “I really want my shows to be as popular as possible, to open up to other people, and I feel that there are a lot of people of my generation who ask themselves this question. Recently, at TNS, we hosted ‘The Song of the Father’, by Hatice Özer. The director toured the kebab shops of Strasbourg so that there were Turkish-speaking spectators in the room. It was impossible for him to imagine that this audience was absent. »
Rehearsals for the play were held in Strasbourg.
Paris Match
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© Manuel Lagos Cid
Drama schools need young people from immigrant backgrounds
Caroline Guiela Nguyen
Caroline knows that this fight is far from won, but notes an evolution in today’s youth. “The times are changing. I have the impression that more artists are moving the lines. In theater schools, we need young people from immigrant backgrounds who have different stories, kids who come from other social backgrounds. We must defend this new consciousness, by asking ourselves the question: ‘Who am I speaking to?’ » Caroline responds with theatrical propositions with a steady, jerky rhythm, like a television series, hooking the viewer with an intrigue whose outcome he awaits, seizing the spirit of the times to better devour the 180 minutes of “Lacrima”. And she adds: “I am very proud that in the TNS programming 60% of the projects are led by women, that 80% of the scheduled artists come for the first time to Strasbourg, and above all that we will hear about it on our sets on Tamil, Arabic, Spanish, Turkish… »
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Would she tackle the classics? “I haven’t met Molière yet,” she replies politely. But I’m crazy about Racine, I produced ‘Andromaque’ when I was a student; I also did a ‘Macbeth’, but I messed up. If I wanted to take on someone else’s text, I think I would first be interested in those of my contemporaries. » Pure product of public theater, would she see her creations presented on a private stage, like Joël Pommerat, who delights the Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin, in Paris, with “The reunification of the two Koreas”? “If I was asked to do ‘Saïgon’ again, it could be a way of continuing to meet the spectators. When there are people who tell me: ‘I came with my grandmother, it’s the first time she’s set foot in the theater’, for me it’s the greatest victory. This is the ultimate goal for a director. » Notice to those interested…
“Lacrima”, from July 1 at the Avignon Festival, then on tour.
© DR
