When the revered French director Ariane Mnouchkine set up her own playhouse in 1970 in a disused munitions factory on the outskirts of Paris, she vowed to turn the space into a “laboratory for popular theater.” Over a half-century later, she is staying true to her word. This month, Mnouchkine has handed the keys to five emerging companies, at no cost, to stage a new festival: Départ d’Incendies, or “Starting Fires.”
The idea came from Annabelle Zoubian, a 28-year-old theater director. In an interview, Zoubian said that the pandemic and the rising cost of touring had made it difficult for early-career artists to take on ambitious stagings. So, in 2021, she reached out to Mnouchkine and asked if she would be willing to host an event dedicated to young troupes.
The answer, an instant “yes,” left Zoubian slightly stunned, she said before the opening performance of the festival last weekend. “It’s exactly what we needed — for someone to trust us to learn,” she said.
Starting Fires, which runs through July 2, has taken over a rehearsal hall belonging to Mnouchkine’s company, Théâtre du Soleil, which regularly hosts performances. The five groups involved have taken a leaf from that ensemble’s egalitarian model: When they’re not performing, artists take turns staffing the ticket booth and the bar.
Onstage, there was no shortage of talent. The three productions I saw all boasted large casts of up to 15 performers: a rarity for emerging companies, given the cost involved. They took big swings, and sometimes missed, but overall, their hard work paid exciting dividends.
The future is bright for Sébastien Kheroufi, a first-time director who imbued Sophocles’ ancient “Antigone” with personal touches. His starting point, according to the playbill, was his own fractured family history: His father left Algeria after the country’s bloody war for independence, yet fell on hard times in France.
Perhaps as a result, a quiet sense of pain runs through Kheroufi’s “Antigone.” Set against the melancholy background of a well and a fallen tree, it earnestly captures the interplay between moral principles and family trauma in Sophocles’ play, only losing momentum in a couple of scenes. The rift between Antigone, who wants to bury her brother against the orders of Thebes’s leader Creon, and her sister Ismene is more balanced than usual: The somber, effective Louisa Chas makes it clear Ismene has already suffered too much to revolt.
In 2021, while still a drama student, Kheroufi took a leading role in the occupation of Paris’s Théâtre de la Colline, protesting the closure of theaters across France. Here, he proves that he has the chops to steer a diverse group of actors, too. “Antigone” features experienced artists — like François Clavier, who makes a toweringly self-satisfied Creon — as well as a chorus of four amateur women who have experienced exile. Kheroufi met those women while working with an emergency shelter, and in one scene, each one curses at Creon in a different language, with arresting gravitas.
Another director, Zoubian, opted to tackle a classic drama: “Platonov,” Anton Chekhov’s first four-act play, from 1878. There is a chaotic energy to the characters — who drink and party around Platonov, a local Casanova, to evade ennui in a Russian province — that makes it especially well-suited to young actors.
Zoubian’s cast took time to settle into this marathon, which clocks in at well over three hours, and there were a couple of technical mishaps: Chekhov’s proverbial gun didn’t fire in the final scene, for instance. But the production ultimately stayed the course, in no small part thanks to Léo Nivet (a charismatic, wide-eyed Sergei) and Romane Bonnardin (trusting and poignant as Sacha, the wife Platonov betrays).
Starting Fires moved outdoors, to a corner of the parking lot, for one production: “Macabre Carnival,” inspired by the Tupamaros, a far-left revolutionary movement active in Uruguay in the 1960s and 1970s. For this show, which had its premiere in 2021, the 15-strong troupe Théâtre de l’Hydre conducted significant research in the country, and features artists born there, as well as in Chile, France and Peru.
Mnouchkine, herself an epic narrator of historical events, is named as an inspiration several times in the playbill, and her influence was clear throughout. With just a handful of platforms on wheels and drawings on a blackboard, the cast set out the main characters and the political context, zipping along with verve. Their director, Stéphane Bensimon, is adept at finding ingenious transitions, and the cast’s many talents — music, dance, even acrobatics — are used at exactly the right times to enhance group scenes.
Even as a few cars hummed in the background, “Macabre Carnival” was wholly engrossing, with a utopian streak that set the tone for the festival. At a time when many young French companies are leaving Paris to bring theater to rural areas, Starting Fires is a welcome new showcase. It deserves to become a permanent fixture on the summer festival calendar.
Festival Départ d’Incendies
Through July 2 at La Cartoucherie in Paris; festival-depart-d-incendies.com.
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