At the Avignon Festival, a provocation between genius and imposture

With the Spanish language being in the spotlight this year, the idea of ​​opening the 78^e edition of the Avignon Festival with a show by Angélica Liddell in the Cour d’honneur of the Palais des Papes was a natural choice. The performer, author and director born in Figueras has the ideal pedigree and her Damon. Bergman’s funeralthe second part of a cycle devoted to death, was highly anticipated in the small world of contemporary theatre. Bergman + Liddell + La Cour d’honneur? A grand cru of Avignon.

Angélica Liddell is like bullfighting: you love it or you hate it. We especially like to hate her but we will never hate her the way she sometimes seems to hate herself. Her incantations are a fight against herself, that is to say against others. There is some beauty in this gesture which invites death because that is what it is: thinking of death at work.

It’s 10pm and, last Saturday, on the red stage, grandiose, still damp from a downpour, there is no noticeable decor. It’s not the…