pleurePASpapa

a rhapsodic performance blending theatre and music

pleurePASpapa reveals a chance encounter between a stranger and a local woman. Their meeting takes place in a place where there is no point in chasing away ghosts.

pleurePASpapa is the staging of a secular ritual. An actor and a musician recount, through their respective bilingualism, what has been witnessed.

pleurePASpapa is a rhapsody: ‘an instrumental work composed of juxtaposed themes of popular or regional inspiration’.

I grew up with two languages, two imaginary worlds, two cultures, two sources of daydreams, symbols and exchanges. To have two languages is to live by making constant choices, and to experience the bittersweet pain of letting go of a part of oneself.

I have sought to bring to light a fragile intimacy: that which binds me to Pasolini, that which binds a reader to an author, that of pupil and master, that of the young and the old. In ‘Gennariello’, a treatise on education for the younger generation, Pasolini reveals the world to a boy of about fifteen. I wanted to convey a vision of the present world through the eyes of someone who might have been Gennariello’s son, Pasolini’s grandson.

Jules Benveniste

The text is a pastiche. It is written in French, Italian and Roman dialect. It features verses whose metre blends the rules of these languages. Inspired by Pasolini’s poetics, it conveys contemporary images interwoven with ancient history, in a language constructed in the style of Harlequin’s costume. The sound, meanwhile, revolves around the encounter between a saxophone and electronic machines.

A polyphonic work in which every meaningful element is a voice and every voice an instrument – space is its soundbox. Languages, sound, costume, movement, music, light, matter and colour are its instruments. This vision seeks to make audible the often-neglected link between meaning and sensation.

photo credits: Andréa Warzee
video credits: Tommy Baron

CAST

Text and Direction
Jules Benveniste
Starring
Jules Benveniste, Lucille Gallard 
Lighting
Mathilde Domarle
Sound
Lucille Gallard
Set Desing
Andréa Warzee
Artistic Collaboration and Costumes 
Violetta Latte
Assistant Director
Salomé Beaumont
Understudy (in development)
Sylvain Deguillame
Dramaturgical input on the text
Clara Christophe, Justine Dibling
Administration
Caroline Otupal
PRACTICAL INFORMATION.
Duration: 65 minutes.
Audience: Ages 13 and over.

PARTNERS

CO-PRODUCTION.
LES ENVOLÉES 22/23 – Troisième Bureau (38) with L’Autre Rive (Eybens); Le Pot au Noir (St-Paul-les-Monestier); TMG (Grenoble); Troisième Bureau (Grenoble); Saint-Martin-d’Hères en scène (St-Martin-d’Hères); Textes en l’Air (Saint-Antoine-l’Abbaye); Théâtre de l’Iris (Villeurbanne); Théâtre des Marronniers (Lyon); Théâtre des Clochards Célestes (Lyon).
Set design: Ateliers du TMG – Théâtre Municipal de Grenoble.
RESEARCH RESIDENCY.
Nouveau Grand Tour - Institut Français Italy, autumn 2022, 30 days (individual)
WRITING RESIDENCIES.
Kaslik University of the Holy Spirit (15 days, Lebanon) 
National Theatre School of Canada (6 weeks, Montreal); 
National Higher School of Theatre Arts and Techniques (3 days, Lyon)
Théâtre de la Petite Rue (10 days, Villeurbanne)
Maison des Arts de la Bazine (7 days, Burgundy)
SUPPORT.
Dynamis Teatro (Rome)
Espace des Forges - Coopérative Artistique du Théâtre des Collines (Annecy)
Friche Artistique Lamartine (Lyon)