Among the talents of Caroline Guiela Nguyen, director of the Théâtre National de Strasbourg, the most important is that of opening our eyes to the intimacy of the characters in her plays, in worlds that are at odds with each other. In Saigon, shock of the 2017 edition of the Avignon Festival, the pain of colonization and exile burst forth in all its violence within the walls of a Vietnamese restaurant. In Brotherhood, fantastic tale, we were caught up in the effects of a mysterious catastrophe swallowing up a part of humanity, leaving the other in the distress of loss and in the fear of oblivion. With Tear, that Caroline Guiela Nguyen signs and directs, we rather walk in a social drama, in the working memory of the opaque world of haute couture.
On a highly technical stage set up in the gymnasium of the Aubanel high school, with screens, interventions from characters at the ends of the earth (Australia, India), a live radio show, we are in a moving geography that takes us from Paris to Alençon via Mumbai, without forgetting London from where an order is coming that will come and explode all the balances, all the ambitions, all the life paths.
It is to Maison Beliana that the Princess of the United Kingdom turns for a wedding dress that must be exceptional, like those worn before her by Elizabeth in 1947, Lady Di in 1981 or Kate Middleton in 2011. Intended to mark an era as well as to conform to a strict princely protocol, this dress becomes the subject of international stakes which, once the pleasure of having been chosen has passed, install an unavoidable pressure, inhuman work rhythms, untenable paradoxical injunctions (shortened deadline but working conditions to be improved), unfair decisions to be made, impossible negotiations with partner suppliers. All in an obsessive cult of secrecy that further strains the situation: the archives of the making of the dress will not be accessible until a hundred years later, adding one of those bad stresses that push people to tear each other apart.
A documentary aspect
With as much finesse as meticulousness, Caroline Guiela Nguyen composes a score that offers its time of light to each instrument, the characters all revealing a part of intimacy, of fragility to the point of irreparable for some. Professional and amateur actors (who play several roles) give the whole a powerful architecture, the strength of some in no way diminishing the authenticity and the overwhelming presence of the others. We think of the character of Thérèse, masterfully interpreted, who spent her life making lace in the workshops of Alençon, and whose family romance erased the reality of a sister who died very young. Going to the sources of this intimate mystery can help to unravel the complicated fate that awaits Rosalie, her granddaughter, today. Impossible to forget Marion, the workshop leader who struggles to escape the influence of her violent husband, an employee of the workshop. With their intern daughter and her mother-in-law, they form a sensitive quartet which falls apart, particularly under the effect of a somewhat lengthy marital dispute.
The social documentary aspect is particularly well managed, showing the consequences on the workers’ bodies of these hours spent embroidering pearls, a pyramidal system locked in obsolete conventions, an exalted hierarchy cut off from the base… We are witnesses to this race towards catastrophe, kept alert by the twists and turns of the story and the discoveries of the staging, as much as by the impeccable direction of the actors. Also well managed are the asides, made possible by a large compartmentalized and modular stage, which close the action on one of the characters with whom empathy is instinctive. We still like this very TV series-like breakdown, definitely addictive, which gives rhythm and breath to a story in which suspense ultimately plays the leading role and in which the viewer gets involved.
“Lacrima”, this Tuesday July 2 at 5 p.m. and until July 11 at the Avignon Festival. 04 90 14 14 14. festival-avignon.com
