1.2.3. Tchekhov !

Presented by Le Théâtre de l'épée de bois

A triptych of short comedies by Anton Tchekhov

Welcome to Tchekhov's world, where comedy mocks tragedy, where no one truly listens to each other, and where life resembles a bad play one is condemned to perform until the very end. Three stories of men. Three collapses. The same genius for failure. In Le Chant du cygne, an old drunken actor wakes up alone in an empty theatre. Between two pathetic Shakespearean tirades, he realises that his existence has been nothing but a long, failed comedy. Phoney applause, delusional memories: the curtain falls on a career that never truly existed. Tragédien malgré lui offers us a civil servant transformed into a domestic beast of burden. Endless errands for family and neighbours. The list grows until he suffocates. What was supposed to be a simple outing becomes an ordeal where each additional request pushes him further into hysteria. A martyr of daily life, he carries his cross with a tragic, utterly disproportionate dignity. In Duel (an adaptation for two actors of the short story Un Duel), two men who are polar opposites – an arrogant scientist and a depressed civil servant – detest each other until the final confrontation. Pistols at dawn! Except no one really knows why they are fighting. Honour? Pride? The monstrous boredom of provincial life? The duel becomes a metaphysical farce where everyone secretly hopes to miss their target. The link between these three texts? Tchekhov's art of transforming failure into a jubilant spectacle. The characters collapse with panache, scream their despair into the void, and struggle in dramas they themselves have created. They are grotesque, touching, unbearable – and terribly human.

By: Anton Tchekhov

Directed by: Jean-Christophe Barbaud

With:

Gérard Rouzier, and Frédéric Schmitt

Lighting: Marta Lucrezi