“The Seagull” by Braunschweig and “Based on a true story…” by Christian Rizzo – Libération

To help our readers navigate the abundant cultural offerings, journalists from the Culture department of Libé clear the ground and deliver to you the essentials of what they liked in the news of film releases, albums, plays and shows, series and books. And every Saturday, our top 10 of the week, all disciplines combined. Find our selections

Theater

“Based on a true story…” by Christian Rizzo

Ten years after its creation at the Avignon Festival, the French choreographer reprises his hit Based on a true story…, sublime spectacle performed by dancers from around the Mediterranean. This key piece of the contemporary repertoire has brought in its wake a wave of creations eyeing like it towards trance and the exhumation of ancient gestures, transmitted from generation to generation far from established classes. As the Middle East burns and America celebrates the reign of virilism, this entirely male play, about the dream of brotherhood, resonates loudly with current events.

“Based on a true story…” by Christian Rizzo, November 12 and 13 in Annecy, November 23 in Béziers, November 26 in Albi, then 2025 tour in Angers, Périgueux, Colombes, etc.

“The Seagull” by Chekhov, directed by Stéphane Braunschweig

By choosing to anchor Chekhov’s play in an indefinite contemporary, the director reveals the prophetic turn of this text written in 1895: it is about the sixth extinction that the young Konstantin, playwright doomed to failure, speaks to us, facing his elders who snub him and are ironic. In this beautiful desolate setting, it is no longer the end of a society but the end of a world that Anton Chekhov speaks to us about.

“The Seagull” by Anton Chekhov (translation André Markowicz and Françoise Morvan), directed by Stéphane Braunschweig. Until December 22 at the Odéon (75006).

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Alix Riemer

Featuring a woman cloistered by her husband and condemned to stubbornly scrutinize the fantastical patterns of the walls that surround her, the play adapts honorably but without panache the text of the American author Charlotte Perkins Gilman (essayist, novelist, poet, journalist…) whose life is summarily summarized at the start of the show, in an unexpected, lively and amusing prologue.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, directed by Alix Riemer, Silvia-Monfort theater (75015), until November 16.

«People, Since I’ve Been Me» by Bob Wilson

Fernando Pessoa version of Groucho Marx or drag queen, immoderate lyricism or deafening sound effects… The American director loses the spectator between the personalities of his hero inspired by the Portuguese writer and the stage artifices. In the end, Wilson gives a clumsy cabaret where he confusedly represents something of the artifice or instability of the self, glossing over both the complexity of Pessoa in this regard, and the poetry of his texts.

“Pessoa, Since I’ve Been Me” by Bob Wilson based on the work of Fernando Pessoa. At the City Theater-Sarah Bernhardt (75004) until November 16th.

“Little Players” by François Chaignaud

In the underground world of the medieval Louvre, the choreographer invites spectators to wander freely through six small pieces. And gives access to a whole small underground people, tender creatures, fools dancing the Moorish, lyrical singers singing tunes from the 14th and 15th centuries with beach buoys in the shape of a pink flamingo tied on their heads. It’s Brueghel, Bosch. The show is presented alongside the “Figures du fou” exhibition, on the floors of the museum, to which the ticket for the piece gives rise to privileged conditions.

“Petites Joeuses” by François Chaignaud, November 14 and 16 at the medieval Louvre (75001). Nine slots per evening are available for reservation, from 7:30 p.m. to 10:10 p.m. As part of the Autumn Festival in Paris.

“BIRD” by Anna Nozière

It’s a children’s show that speaks with finesse and humor about death, the dead and the way in which most of us ignore them. Mustapha’s father is dead. With all the other children at school who have lost a loved one, or a beloved animal, Mustapha will set up a big brotherhood at school – “If you love your dead, come with us” –, organize a big party in the cemetery, with surimi and Oreos, graffiti the walls (“Police everywhere, our dead nowhere”) and leave, at night, to find those who are no longer there. Under the forbidden gaze of adults.

“BIRD” by Anna Nozière, November 15 and 16 at the Claude-Debussy theater in Maisons-Alfort (94), November 20 and 21 at the Jean-François Voguet theater in Fontenay-sous-Bois, November 28 to 30 at the Théâtre du Fil water in Pantin, December 10 and 11 at the Jean-Vilar theater in Vitry sur Seine, then in 2025 in Verdun, Angers, Nanterre, Sartrouville, Lorient, Marseille…

“I’m too green” by David Lescot

After I’m too scared et I have too many friendsthe director takes his young hero to a green class to address the ecological issue with children. It is an understatement to say that it is difficult to write for young audiences. David Lescot finds a remarkably accurate, protean tone, managing to situate the point of view of his hero, who is also the one who tells the story, at the very accurate level of a still childish understanding of the world, therefore incomplete, sometimes anguished. , but never simple.

“I am too green”, text and direction by David Lescot. Alternating with Lyn Thibault, Elise Marie, Sarah Brannens, Lia Khizioua Ibanez, Marion Verstraeten and Camille Bernon. Show from 8 years old at the Théâtre de la Ville (75004) until November 16 then on tour.

“Cécile” by Marion Duval

With a talent for improvisation without simpering and crazy energy, the actress tells the story of her thousand lives in Cecile, directed by her friend Marion Duval.

“Cecile”, directed by Marion Duval on November 14 and 15 at the Quai d’Angers, then on tour to Tours, Orléans…

On the other shore after Chekhov, by Cyril Teste

Both a great evening on stage and a film performance, the liberated adaptation of Platonov by Chekhov reveals the banally monstrous relationships of the characters.

“On the other bank” after “Platonov” by Chekhov, directed by Cyril Teste, until November 16 at the Théâtre du Rond-Point (75008), on November 26, at the Equinoxe in Châteauroux, then in December in Amiens, Mans, Roubaix…

“The English Lover” by Marguerite Duras with Sandrine Bonnaire

The actress returns to the theater in a play by Marguerite Duras based on a news story where she wonderfully embodies a woman who searches with her interrogator for the motives of an assassination she committed.

“L’Amante Anglaise” by Marguerite Duras, directed by Jacques Osinski at the Théâtre de l’Atelier (75018) until December 31, then on tour.

“The Suicide” by Stéphane Varupenne

Directed by Stéphane Varupenne, Nicolaï Erdman’s play, censored in 1930, paints the portrait of a Stalinist society which had every reason to suppress itself. Too caricatured.

“Le Suicidé”, directed by Stéphane Varupenne, at the Comédie-Française until February 2.

“Square root of the verb to be” by Wajdi Mouawad

Wajdi Mouawad reprises a play already performed at the Hill. Through five characters who become one, the director tells the fate of a Lebanese family devastated by the explosion of August 4, 2020 in Beirut. The brilliance of the staging and the abundance of trajectories make us forget some of the heaviness of the writing.

“Square root of the verb to be”, text and direction by Wajdi Mouawad, at the Théâtre de la Colline (75020) until December 22.

“Lacrima” by Caroline Guiela Nguyen

Between Paris, Mumbai and Alençon, the director retraces the making of a princess’s wedding dress. His show is a feat, an ample, popular choral story of rare precision.

Lacrima by Caroline Guiela Nguyen, at the Comédie de Reims from November 20 to 21, at the Théâtre du Nord in Lille from December 7 to 11, at the Scène nationale de Douai on December 18 and 19, at the Odéon in Paris from January 7 . to Feb. 6 2025…

Danse

“Routade” by Olivia Grandville

Seven dancers deconstruct the assignments linked to their gender. An applied choreography which poorly masks a lack of originality on a theme that has been discussed many times.

“Débandade” by Olivia Grandville, Chaillot on November 30 at the Liberté theater in Toulon, January 18 at the Equinoxe in Châteauroux

Alone on stage

“The End of the Beginning” by Solal Bouloudnine

In his childhood bedroom recreated on stage, Solal Bouloudnine plunges back, through an exciting gallery of characters, into his 90s haunted by the death of Michel Berger.

“The End of the Beginning” by Solal Bouloudnine at the Lepic theater (75018) every Monday, Tuesday at 9 p.m., and Sundays at 7:30 p.m. Until January 5.

Musical

“La Haine” by Mathieu Kassovitz and Serge Denoncourt

Transposed into the France of Bardella and “Justice for Adama” with an ultra-unifying ambition, carried live by young rappers and breakers, the work of Mathieu Kassovitz sets the room ablaze again, thirty years after its cinema release. very mixed musical Seine.

“Hatred, so far nothing has changed”, artistic direction and direction by Mathieu Kassovitz and Serge Denoncourt at the Seine musicale (92100) until January 5, November 15 and 16 in Lyon then on a national tour.

Find all movie, series, music selections…from the culture department.