Les Demeurées

Presentation

From the outside of the box, nothing is revealed about the journey you are going to take. Every three minutes, a bell rings: an actor allows you, one at a time, to penetrate inside the enigmatic structure, a living book that invites you through its pages to meet the characters of the novel: the Varienne, the village idiot, the one who perceives the world differently, Luce, her daughter and the primary school teacher Miss Solange, who has decided she will open the doors of knowledge to Luce.

Begat Theater proposes a unique adaptation of a contemporary novel that is both performance and installation: Les Demeurées by Jeanne Benameur is a fable of another time with universal resonance questioning handicap, separation, and access to knowledge.

About the novel by Jeanne Benameur, Les Demeurées

The mother, the Varienne, is the village idiot. The little one, she’s Luce. Something in her has stopped. Nevertheless, the two of them, form a block of love. Invincible. School threatens this fusion. The primary school teacher, Miss Solange, wants to tear the child away from ignorance, because knowledge is compulsory. But can we cross the threshold of this world without consequences? The art of the pure, the quintessence of emotion, such is the secret of Les Demeurées. Jeanne Benameur, like a lace maker, places her words with infinite modesty and her words catch in your throat. – Folio

Comments about the show by the author Jeanne Benameur

“Strong, so strong. These are the words that come to me after the unique experience offered by Begat Theater. The solitary passages proposed by this installation of Les Demeurées made me relive the strangeness which inhabited me during all of the writing process. It was unexpected for me. Deeply moving. Thank you for the sincerity. It is rare.”

Cast and crew

Concept / Set design: Karin Holmström

Drawings / Paintings: Bénédicte Blanc

Set construction / technical director: Philippe Laliard

Sound Design: Erika Latta et Philippe Laliard

Direction of the actors: Erika Latta – WaxFactory

Voice (recorded, French): Françoise Trompette – Orphéon Théâtre intérieur

Voice (recorded, English): Dion Doulis, translation Véronique Otto

Voice (recorded, Italian): Jeanne Benameur, translation Flore Giordanengo

Voice (recorded, Dutch): Elizabeth Kestens, translation Djamila Bekkour and Tine Steeman

Actors: Bénédicte Blanc (La Varienne), Karin Holmström (Mademoiselle Solange), Nolwenn Moreau (Mademoiselle Solange), Philippe Laliard, Eric Gaudé

Support

With the support of the Conseil Général des Alpes de Haute Provence and the Conseil Régional PACA