An elegy to the ephemeral quality of human existence
It took almost half a century for the Greek public to be introduced to Ariane Mnouchkine, who came to Athens last summer with «Caravanne,» an epic performance held at the Faliron Olympic Complex. The acclaimed French stage director is now back in the Greek capital in a sharper, more focused way with the Theatre du Soleil and «Les Ephemeres» (The Ephemerals) as a guest of the Athens Festival. Last year’s unforgettable depiction of refugee odysseys makes way for a more detailed examination of the way the small threads of daily life weave together to form a whole. Naturalistic and dream-like microcosms play out on revolving platforms, forming a fabric of love, friendship, conflicts and farewells. Many actors switch roles, something that came about because of improvisations based on their own memories. The performance is an elegy to the ephemeral quality of human existence and is one more landmark in the 43-year-old history of Theatre du Soleil. With this particular work, Mnouchkine searches for the common link in our individual histories, the unseen sides of the lives of ancestors and parents, or their absence, all the positive and negative ways in which they affected us. It’s also worth noting that Mnouchkine’s troupe has renewed the meaning of political theater, continually experimenting with the codes of national action and celebration, comedia dell’arte and Eastern theater. Mnouchkine invited members of the press to join her and the cast for a luncheon at the venue where they will be performing, giving us an opportunity to speak not only with her but with several actors, including Shaghayegh (Sasha) Beheshti from Teheran and Duccio Bellugi-Vannuccini from Florence. «The springboard for ‘Les Ephemeres’ was an idea by Mnouchkine to create an ‘ode to humanity’ through a vision of its extinction,» said Beheshti. «Anyway, you can’t speak of life without speaking about death.» «What would you do if you had 48 hours before a meteor slammed into Earth?» Mnouchkine asked her actors, calling on them through this question to weave their own personal stories. As they experimented and rehearsed, the meteor idea was discarded as being too restrictive and «Les Ephemeres» became a performance based not on a written text but on a «piece comprising the visions and sudden appearances of the actors,» explains the director. «The challenge with this production,» says Mnouchkine, «was to show to what degree people recognize themselves in the small stories of others. The performance depicts communal life, not the life of each individual separately.» The director explained that through the rehearsal process, each individual story was enriched and complemented by the group, often «revealing things we did not expect.» Group therapy then? «Not exactly, unless we focus on this part only, on the part of something significant being unexpectedly revealed through something seemingly insignificant,» she answers. Time becomes a key factor in the performance. «Time is the partner of death, because, yes, it does give us moments of joy and life but it also leads us to our extinction. Time, they say, heals all wounds but at the same time it brings us closer to death. Memory is eternal and life is ephemeral.» The importance of time is underscored by the music of Jean-Jacques Lemetre, which, says Mnouchkine, «is not mere accompaniment but gives body to the emotions.» The performance of «Les Ephemeres» is in two parts, each lasting 3 hours and 15 minutes, and will be presented both separately and together, starting today to July 1. For ticket information, contact the Athens Festival (tel 210.327.2000).
