A journalist filed a complaint on Sunday against director Angélica Liddell for “public insults” during the opening piece of the Avignon festival on Saturday evening, while the artist expressed on Sunday “his hatred of criticism” theatre. Stéphane Capron, head of the live entertainment section at France Inter, also founder of the cultural information site Sceneweb, filed a complaint for “public insults”he told AFP, which was able to consult the minutes of the complaint.
On Saturday evening, in the main courtyard of the Palais des Papes, the Spanish director, known for her radicalism and her disturbing shows, had spent several minutes of her show, “Demon”to specifically criticize several French press critics, repeating out loud excerpts from articles written on previous plays, had noted an AFP journalist present. She spoke in Spanish, the translation being projected on the back wall.
“A litany of insults”
In the complaint, Stéphane Capron accuses the director of having quoted extracts from his old articles (published on Sceneweb about ten years ago, Editor’s note), of having asked if he was present in the audience, then of having uttered “a litany of insults” in front of some 2,000 spectators. Arguing that other colleagues who had been mocked had not been insulted, he asked “that the insults be removed from the show until the end of the Avignon festival”.
Contacted, festival director Tiago Rodrigues told AFP that “the comments made on stage as part of an artistic project cannot be considered as a position of the festival”. He recalled that the latter “defends freedom of creation, freedom of expression and freedom of the press” et “need not interfere with the integrity of the works presented”Before filing the complaint, the director explained at a press conference on Sunday morning her “hatred of criticism”that she “sharing” with the filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, the source of his inspiration for “Demon”.
France Inter director supports journalist
“My work is a slap in the face to critics and I would also like to be able to physically give this slap to all those people who, with impunity and in a banal way, have hurt me”she declared, according to the French translation of her remarks. “I can’t do that physically. I would even like to throw a punch like Bergman did, but it wouldn’t be possible because people would sue me and I would end up in directors’ prison.”she added.
On the social network X, Adèle Van Reeth, director of France Inter, gave her support to the journalist, judging “unworthy” these insults. “The artist is free to create, the journalist is free to criticize”she said, specifying: “There are a thousand ways to do this, bypassing the insult with the power of imagination, without giving in to the ease of a frontal attack.”.
