Performances from 22th to 25th of October 2014 - 8pm - Sat 25, 3pm & 8pm
The Fig Tree, UNSW, High St, Gate 4, Kensington, NSW
Entry : $17 - $20
Cast Lou-Ann Aubin, Olivia Auday, Loic Barancourt, Harley de Burgh, Luc Marin, Christine Poplimont, Rachel Wach
Directed by Jean-Yves Brignon
Communication Maïté Cosserat
Technician Quentin Lesage
Reception Staff Lou-Ann Aubin, Oriane Mottram, Mahaud Armand
Translation Elisabeth Burke, notes
Marivaux: the games of love and of theatre
“I sought in the human heart all the nooks and crannies where love might hide fearful to reveal itself and each of my comedies aims to liberate love from its hideaway.1”
Love is centre stage in Marivaux’s theatre. The titles of his comedies – The Triumph of Love (1720), The Surprise of Love (1722) The Game of Love and Chance (1730) - say it all. To paint and analyse human feelings, to reveal the secrets of the heart: this is the task of the dramaturge. There is no better laboratory in which to undertake this experience than on the theatre stage.
According to Marivaux love either hides or is hidden. A feeling that begins furtively to then flourish unexpectedly is like a dramatic unfolding on the stage of the human heart. Here is where Marivaux’s comedy begins as he explores games of hide-and-seek in all its subtlety, refinement and at times cruelty. Each new scene corresponds to a new shift in feeling, and the spectator simultaneously experiences the unfolding of the theatrical timing and the complex heartbeats of love.
Marivaux’s art explores this theme of love on three planes.
Firstly he invites us to discover the human heart through the surprises of love that test his characters: the birth of love, the return of consciousness over feeling, and the inconstancy of the human heart. One of the major themes of his comedies is that of the birth of feelings of love in the heart of one who refuses to recognise it.
Marivaux also suggests we unveil self-esteem, this “power” of vanity that dwells in human relationships. He is wonderful at showing us the contradictions that exist between the conventions of society and our deepest feelings. Games of love in Marivaux’s plays are also games of truth. In each play the plot is centred on a “test” that the characters devise in order to reveal genuine desire above and beyond the uncertainty of words and the roles that society’s conventions oblige us to play.
The third discovery this theatre offers us is language itself. Marivaux’s dramaturgy investigates every possibility: language that hides and confesses, language that is both a weapon and a mask. Lively language in nuanced tones of a drawing room conversation is transformed the next instant into a fierce and violent dialogue. Rich comic effect is found in the flip between barely uttered words, highly suggestive though incomprehensible, and verbal jousting. “To confess what one does not even admit to oneself, to express what no one had ever expressed before, these are the two fundamental strengths of Marivaux2” wrote Frédéric Deloffre, who analyses the subtleties of dialogue in Marivaux’s plays.
Love, like theatre, is thus a game, a ‘serious’ game thanks to the characters who reveal themselves to others and to themselves, a necessary illusion for truth to shine. And it is often disguise and dressing-up that enables revelation. We rediscover in Marivaux’s comedies a device frequently used in theatre: role-swapping. Masters play the role of servants; servants put on the garments of their masters. Played by the other, each gazes at him/herself as in a mirror – such is the magic of theatre. Marivaux thus subverts the definition of the social ladder and asks us to reflect on the values and significance that we place on it. His plays allow him to express a philosophy of society that redefines the relationships between the dominant and the dominated, master and servant, lords and peasants, men and women. We must de-mask, he tells us, this representation of being in society based on appearance and at times deception. Theatre becomes the place of almost ritualistic ceremony: it enables us to reveal our souls. This ceremony, must for happiness, is only possible with sincerity. Questioning the rigidity of status in society, it anticipates the birth of a new truth, more luminous than surprising: that of the heart.
_____________________
1_Marivaux, cited by d’Alembert in Eloge de Marivaux
2_Deloffre: Marivaux et le marivaudage, une préciosité nouvelle (p. 8)
The Game of Love and Chance
Dram'in French - ABN : 91 829 230 115 - Copyright © 2014