Brunel’s outstanding mise-en-scène shows, in turn, what one can do with such a beautiful yet gruelling text. Gaspard deals in repetitions, different rhythms, intonations, in sense and nonsense and the unspoken meaning of words. Lines come preceded or supplemented by long and tricky stage directions.
Martine Silber, Le monde
Handke once said that his play could have been entitled “speech torture” and, as if by magic, Brunel’s direction made this very torture a bubbling, dynamic spectacle.
Martine Silber, Le monde
Peter Handke’s Gaspard is a purposefully disturbing play, which benefits here from a masterful staging, imagined by Richard Brunel.
Didier Hemardinquer, L’est républicain
Brunel has picked and chosen what he needed from Handke’s stage directions: neither too much, nor too little – a perfect balance.
Mathilde La Bardonnie, Libération
Richard Brunel, in this undaunted and stylish creation, has elected not to follow Handke’s direction word for word, as the author called for a brutal and flashy spectacle (…).
Gilles Costaz, Politis
This version of Gaspard is our brother in his misery, our doppelganger in despair. We love him all the more for it, within a rejuvenated play that has once again found its way into the deepest, darkest furrows of our brain.
Gilles Costaz, Politis
Kaspar (Gaspard)
Peter Handke
French translation Thierry Garrel and Vania Vilers
Director Richard Brunel
Set designer Marc Lainé
Lighting designer David Debrinay
Sound designer Manu Rutka
Costume designer Marc Lainé, Marie-Frédérique Fillion
Stage designer Nicolas Hénault
Assistant director Sophie Langevin
Movement consultant Axelle Mikaeloff
Dramaturgy consultants Silvia Berutti-Ronelt, Catherine Ailloud Nicolas
Experimental consultants Angélique Clairand, Julio Guerreiro
Set Théâtre National Populaire
Produced by La Compagnie Anonyme, Théâtre de la Manufacture, Centre dramatique national de Nancy-Lorraine, with the participation of the Jeune Théâtre National and the support of the ADAMI (Performers’ services organisation)
Cast
Nicolas Cartier
Julio Guerreiro
Anne Rotger
Olivier Werner