Le Voyage à La Haye - Présentation

Jean-Luc Lagarce Le Voyage à La Haye
direction François Berreur

Presentation

And still, from time to time, we must admit,

we will not be seen by others as we believe ourselves in truth to be,
as we would like to be loved by others.
To be satisfied with the regard of others and to hope for nothing more,
to cease to claim one's own truth,
our truth is given to us by others,
our own truth remains secret,
for better or for worse, we can no longer say.

From "Du luxe et de l'impuissance"
by Jean-Luc Lagarce
Editions Les Solitaires Intempestifs

This one is a very long journey,

A journey deep into the heart of a man, into the heart of the pain which, when it becomes unbearable, gives rise to an epic story, an after-dinner sketch, a witty remark, an expression of that necessary irony and essential humour, elegance and despair.

It is the evocation of a childhood dream, to accompany Captain Fracasse from town to town, from train to train, from theatre to theatre, to be part of one's own fiction and to improve it and to degrade it and to cheat, but not to forget to recount a few essential details about foolishness, hypocrisy, egoism and the harshness of those who see nothing but their own little troubles.

And then, as death approaches, this man comes and tells us about the beauty of life, the passion of the theatre and the astonishment that after so many years, there is still surprise. Is he a hero? Or simply a man on his feet, still the master of his pain?

François Berreur

We see ourselves looking at ourselves,

our love stories are like the love stories in plays and novels that we love to hear, it's all lies, and this lie, so beautiful, can be broken, can suddenly be revealed: a simple veil, a fragile mist can just disappear and it is there, given away, before our eyes. Now, nothing would be needed to transform that which we believe to be the awakening after the dream into an even deeper, more peaceful dream, the worry of being disturbed intruding less and less.

It's simply a matter of admitting the danger of never again returning to our certainties. To never be afraid, and to see ourselves in the flickering lights of the stage and with our wavering attention.

To walk with measured steps, in the faintness of the light which separates the dream from wakefulness, the audience from the stage. To go ahead of our own imagination perhaps, to enter our own novel, to cross this barrier of spectators to be in the lights, actors in the tale.

And like a book into which one could go, to enter the story as one would penetrate further and further onto a stage, to go into the novel as one would travel by thought into the words and phrases, becoming the characters, putting oneself on show, the idea of childhood, as one would go walking in one's own imagination like an explorer and director, playing and to play, speaking the truth truer than true.

And when relief comes, when the dream fades and the dead rise up and the actors take their bow, and when calm returns to feelings and they continue on their way, there will remain, like a slight pain, a little death, the memory of this time of falsehood, and the unavowed hope that this new life may be the beginning of another new play, the entrance to another dream, even greater than the others and encompassing them all, to infinity and beyond, for ever.

A propos de L'Illusion comique

JEAN-LUC LAGARCE

October 94