Until now, the plays of François Bon that I have worked with for the stage all make dead people speak. In 1998, Vie de Myriam C. brought Myriam out of her tomb and back onto the stage; in 1999, Bruit allowed the four homeless persons who died in Nancy to speak. In Quatre avec le mort, a dead man makes the living speak.
Three characters: the son, the daughter and the daughter-in-law of the dead father. An hour-long ceremony where the living characters open their bodies to let the dead man speak as if he enters into them.
The stage is probably a special place for the return of the dead. In the circumstances, this play is not necessarily a place for tears, but a place where the mechanics of language (breathing, rhythm, whispering) becomes the theatrical form.
Here, François Bon does not summon varied or evolving situations. There is only one. That of saying, during this hour of theatre, here and now, what must be said. No entrances or exits are indicated, no descriptions of the space, no stage directions. This absence of guidelines for the dialogues requires the director and the actors themselves to track down the form that results, that flows from the language which becomes the main act of theatre.
To find the balance between pretence and reality in the plays of François Bon requires the constant re-asking of the question of the theatre and its necessity. In this, his theatre has become essential to me. In this, the continuation of our research over several years is a component of my work even if I don't know exactly where he is heading. With him, I know we are searching together.
The fact that the Comédie-Française undertook with us, over several sessions, the work of seeking the equilibrium point of the text with the actors of the Français, is a fine act of confidence which has enabled us to raise our expectations.
The time we took with François for Vie de Myriam C. at the Centre Dramatique National in Nancy, the time taken with the Théâtre Ouvert for the rehearsals of Bruit , and for Quatre avec le mort at the Comédie-Française, can only encourage us, in all these places of theatrical creation, to favour these moments of reunion, where writers, director and actors place themselves in a position of research.

Charles Tordjman