About ogres and other insatiable people, Part two

Here, how did you handle the character of the ogre?

We have tried to show all kinds of ogres: good ones, bad ones, nice ones, violent or funny ogres… It’s true that the current events of the past years have put a very crude light on all the greedy drifting of some firm leaders. But, in fact, this voracious and rigid way of looking at life has always existed.
In our performances, it’s always important for the company not to show too simple or limited realities. For me, the real stake is to put a subtle light on things, to tell vivid histories showing their entire complexity.

In this new creation, you also explore the idea of happiness. Is it, in your eyes, really intimately linked to the idea of voracity?

The first question that crosses your mind when you talk about voracity is often that of happiness. What are the ogres looking for? Do they only find happiness in absorbing or consuming? As you well know, we are mortal. So, in that case, I really wonder: what is the meaning of this constant need to accumulate as much as possible, always longing for more and more? What these frenzied “hamster-like” people can do with their booty. How far they really enjoy the enormous wealth they have accumulated, what seems to me purely impossible, in a life time, to do so?
For this creation, I wished to do something, I’ve never done before: to ask children what happiness means to them. In fact, I got the chance to exchange letters with a class of Czech pupils. The majority mentioned liberty, space, family and “freedom to do what they felt like doing”.  Of course, others brought up wealth but just a few of them. There, I must admit one thing:  I was pleased to see that for the majority of them, happiness didn’t mean to own a swimming pool.

Except for happiness, what are the other topics you have explored in The Ogres?
Actually, all the big ideas usually inherent to my performances. Symbolically expressed, problems, linked to food and territory, come from the necessity of surviving. It’s the idea of the empty and the full, of privation and abundance, space and confinement and, last but not least, of accumulating. In that sense, the picture of boats loaded with boat-people is, in my point of view, really striking. I feel the same about the peasants in Amazonian or in the north-east of Brazil who have been roughly expelled out of their own territories or even about agriultural lands in Madagascar rented by corean industrial consortiums…
I try, as I said previously, to have various approaches: I think of all the possible movements, all the variants creating the links between the empty and the full. And, of course, I love adding a spell of humour and derision to these stories. It’s my way to accentuate the pathetic of some attitudes and contrasts, without neglecting altogether the earnest and dramatic character of some of the stories.

In this new show, what his the space left to tale and myth?
Many years ago, I worked a lot on the universe of fairy tales and myth.  Of course, when I started creating “The Ogres”, all the things I had already worked on came back to me. For the time being, I am more concerned and interested by the events linked to today’s actuality. However, when you create performances without a fixed text, as I do, you need to have inside you a rich and heterogeneous material where you draw into as one goes along, according to the situations created with the comedians.
For the time being, I don’t want to focus my work on tale or myth. So I led up the comedians to work around stories that directly concern today’s world. Nevertheless, when you start a research with the ogre as a topic, it’s difficult to totally ignore these two fields of references, myth and reality. Thus, as the working sessions went on, and when I thought it was right to do so, I nourished what appeared on stage with visions and symbols related to the tale.

In your creations you rest as much on your imaginary as that of the comedians involved…
Yes, indeed. All our imaginary worlds oppose themselves and become richer. This brings our creations to reflect the identity and wishes of each of us. Each member of the group is in turn performer and spectator of the performance, which leads to extremely rich exchanges based on the idea of pleasure. As for me, pleasure and theatre are intimately linked: if there is no pleasure, there is no theatre. And as a stage director, it’s my role to make sure that this pleasure will be shared by the audience, without ever calling into question our artistic demand. I want to target a very large audience, like our performances usually do: a mixed audience from a social, cultural and generation point of view.

Interview realised by Manuel Piolat Soleymat

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