Festival d'Avignon, through 27 July 2010
In July, as far as theatre lovers and experts are concerned, all roads lead to Southern France: the Avignon Festival, one of the artistically intense and diverse theatre celebration in Europe, features a rich international programme and an extensive showcase of the best in French performing arts.
This year, the honour of opening the festival has fallen on the truly brilliant tandem of the Swiss director Christoph Marthaler and the German set designer Anna Viebrock with their PAPPERLAPAPP, a new production created especially for Festival d'Avignon and performed in the courtyard of Palais des Papes. The festival programme also includes one of Marthaler's most powerful productions, Schutz vor der Zukunft (Protecting Yourself from the Future), featuring an outstanding ensemble of actors and singers from a number of European theatres - a fact which explains why this piece, one of the most profound European theatre works, is so rarely performed: do not miss this unique opportunity! The production was originally mounted in Vienna, at the Otto Wagner Psychiatric Hospital, a place where experiments with children and mentally ill people were conducted during the Third Reich. The trail of Marthaler's musically investigative theatre leads to places rarely talked about in public, to warehouses of crime, as it were, thinking of the modern day social Darwinism and fascism of the economic thinking. As the production slowly tours the world, it is always performed at carefully selected venues - always spaces packed with layers and layers of memories, never ordinary theatre houses. This year's programme also presents an exhibition of Anna Viebrock's model sets: a wonderful insight into a very special world of art.
Festival d'Avignon presents an overview of the most essential French productions created during the past theatre season; the extensive programme comprises a selection of the very best.
Alongside the showcase of the French theatre, other events worth visiting are the performances of two productions by the Belgian artist Alain Platail, Gardenia and Out of Context. As a choreographer, Platail is interested in the deepest roots of movement, a man's mental processes, the genuine impulses which stand behind someone's physical action. His latest piece Out of Context is a tribute to the great German dancer and choreographer, the late Pina Bausch.
One of the most interesting contemporary Dutch directors Guy Cassiers and his Toneelhuis ensemble are bringing to Avignon their stage version of Robert Musil's Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften I (The Man without Qualities I).
Last but not least, another event that should not be missed - Les Corbeaux (The Crows) by the unique Hungarian choreographer Josef Nadj.
Alongside the carefully planned main programme freedom and anarchy thrive in the Off programme: a bill of more than six hundred events that have been judged and approved by no-one except the performers themselves. You may not find another festival that equals Festival d'Avignon as far as the concentration of theatre per square metre of the city is concerned.
Programme : www.festival-avignon.com
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