MNOUCHKINE PRESENTS MINUTIAE OF EVERYDAY LIFE IN “LES EPHEMERES”
July 6 (Bloomberg) — The 12 intimate stories comprising “Les Ephemeres” include one by the epic drama’s celebrated French director Ariane Mnouchkine. Which story, she’s not divulging — she prefers injecting a bit of mystery into the show.
“Les Ephemeres” begins a two-week run tomorrow night at New York’s Park Avenue Armory as part of the Lincoln Center Festival.
Mnouchkine (pronounced muh-NOOSH-keen) is also not one to pull rank atTheatre du Soleil, the avant-garde theater company she founded 45 years ago in Paris.
“I consider this my most collaborative work,” said the bespectacled, 70-year-old doyenne. Unlike the mythic, historical and political canvases of previous shows such as “Les Atrides,” “1789” or “Le Dernier Caravanserail,” “Les Ephemeres” (the title, she said, refers to the mayfly, whose lifespan is no more than a day or two) deals with prosaic events in our brief lives, from debt to divorce.
“The stories are the actors’ own,” Mnouchkine said. “The little sets are totally their creation, even the costumes. Everything. Nothing was pre-decided.
‘‘At the beginning, I just asked the question ‘What would our last three months be like if we knew we were going to die?’ and we went on totally blind for a while,’’ she continued, ‘‘but let things come up out of our hearts, throats, mouths and tears.’’
Joint Operation
Her collaborative technique stands in contrast to the more common one of an all-powerful director.
‘‘I let things happen and I give space and time for the actors to express what they feel and fear,’’ she said. ‘‘I don’t touch anything that comes out wonderful.’’ The rest she meticulously edits, rearranges and discards.
The improvisations, based on memories and experiences supplied by members of her troupe, were painstakingly refined during eight months of workshops. Out of hundreds of experiences, a dozen stories emerged and were seamlessly interwoven through 29 scenes, presented in two parts and performed by 30 actors.
Life may be fleeting, but ‘‘Les Ephemeres’’ clocks in at almost seven hours.
Feast of Styles
‘‘I can’t seem to make it shorter,’’ Mnouchkine says of her famously long shows. In addition to tales, they invariably offer a feast of visual, musical and linguistic styles that draw on Eastern as well as Western story-telling traditions.
‘‘We have so many things to tell, and also complex things,’’ she said. ‘‘Time is necessary. If it’s too short, you have to lie.’’
Truth is what Mnouchkine’s after. She said that she has no use for what she calls ‘‘intellectual theater,’’ preferring to work on gut instinct: ‘‘I trust my emotions. If I have goose pimples on my arms, it’s good. If I haven’t, it’s boring, so I don’t want it.”
Part of what keeps Mnouchkine’s work from being boring is its cinematic quality — not surprising for the woman who devised the original scenario for the 1964 Jean-Paul Belmondo film, “That Man From Rio.”
“Les Ephemeres” presents a series of vignettes, played out on circular, mobile mini-stages containing kitchen, living room, bedroom and other domestic sets that move about and reassemble in various configurations.
Many Influences
Mnouchkine cites American and Japanese cinema as major influences. A passion for silent film is evident in “Les Ephemeres,” which contains almost no dialogue. The silences are filled by composer Jean-Jacques Lemetre, Mnouchkine’s long-time collaborator.
“His music is more than important, it’s essential” she said. “We couldn’t do what we are doing without Jean-Jacques.” Lemetre composed over 40 hours of music before rehearsals began. The lyrical score employs both prerecorded elements and the composer, live, playing a variety of instruments.
As a premiere approaches, Mnouchkine and her troupe often live in very close quarters at La Cartoucherie, the former munitions factory in Paris’s 12th arrondissement. The result is evident in the performance.
“We couldn’t work like that if didn’t have a strong belief in the quest of theater,” Mnouchkine said. “Making theater is not like making tee shirts for sale. It’s a place where people use their imaginations, where the actors and the public should become stronger, more intelligent, more human, and gather strength to fight their demons.”
“Les Ephemeres” runs July 7-19 at the Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Ave. Information: +1-212-721-6500; http://www.lincolncenter.org.