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THEATRE DE LA MEZZANINE
Côte d'azur

Theatre de la Mezzanine was founded in 1979 near Paris. Directed by Denis Chabroullet, the group explores a theatrical grammar using materials, sound and images as a vocabulary for hallucinatory, weird angry and poetic visions. Silent worlds and truly original scenographies where Meaning and Human fight to survive.

Their latest production, Côte d'Azur, was first presented in October 2008. It's an invitation to dive without drawing breath in an astonishing universe : a sort of watery city in ruins, surrounded by tall wooden palisades in which windows open and close from time to time. Through these windows, spectators observe a mysterious small society of enclosed beings living around a decrepit service station on top of which the word "Azur" is blinking dimly... "Azur"...

Walking around the palisades at the pace of windows opening and closing on a ghostly universe, they witness this visual and silent poem, follow the trials and tribulations of this small enclosed world.

The performance area is already a drama.
Scenography and all the objects are chosen with care, filled with a past imaginary happiness. The necessity to bath everything in this grout of fuel, water and other degenerated materials provokes a deliquescent harmony : a sinking launched from a distance.
The decor is closed, its inhabitants voluntarily circled by their phobias are trapped ; the outside world is screaming into their ears, provoking tinnitus.
> Denis Chabroullet

Scenographer, author, director : Denis Chabroullet
Scenographer : Michel Lagarde
Music and sound: Roselyne Bonnet des Tuves and Lionel Seillier
Assistant to director : Cécile Maquet
Decor : Toger Chéreau and Démis Boussu
With : Roger Chéreau, Lacrimioara Szlanko, Marie Lagrée, Cécile Maquet, Laurent Marconnet, Marie-Pierre Pirson, Clémence Schreiber, Philippe Soutan, Jean-Louis Sbardella, Martial Bort (guitare) et Lionel Seillier (batterie)
Lighting : Jérôme Buet
Sound : Eric Pottier
Partners : Théâtre Massalia / Friche Belle de Mai (Marseille) ; L'Apostrophe, scène nationale de Cergy-Pontoise ; Théâtre Luxembourg (Meaux) ; Scène nationale de Valenciennes
With the support of : Centre National du Théâtre, ARCADI ; Conseil général de Seine-et-Marne ; ADAMI ; Théâtre Autrement ; Théâtre de la marionnette à Paris

PRESS REVIEWS

"Côte d'Azur" sets in a cesspit of oil and water a tribe of sympathetic and poignant monsters, whose rumblings sometimes create melodies of heart breaking beauty and whose violence sometimes reminds of ancient caresses.
The actors are remarkable of intensity, sensuality and brutality. Their moving fragility also tells without a word many things about pain and hope. They play the partition written by Denis Chabroullet with incredible accuracy, always on the verge of dissolution.
The superb images created by the different points of view offered by the opening and closing of windows compose chapters suddenly frozen in extatic vision by the perpetual moves of the actors. Once again, the pertinent, original and sizzled work of Theatre La Mezzanine proves the extraordinary talent of this group.
> La Terrasse

Atmosphere of an ending world for animal, cathartic theatre of striking visual phantasmagorias and live music. It has a disillusioned sense of humour... but it's never desperate.
> Télérama

With a playful and daring scenography - a circular stage surrounded by palisades opening from time to time - the show invites the spectators to walk around the performance space : "It's a way to watch the world. Through these barricades, the spectator observes a struggling world in distress. It's like an hyper realistic film set : looking through these windows allows to make close-ups, modify the depths of fields, walking around the show as you like."
> Mouvement

VIDEO

WEBSITE www.theatredelamezzanine.com

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