The director and director of the hill theater fails to move with the history of this family who is tearing himself apart. Avoid until June 22.
We went there with our eyes closed, with confidence. Wajdi Mouawad’s only name was enough for us. The disappointment was all the greater. We should have been wary of the title already. Its Wedding day at the Cromagnons (Editions Actes Sud) at the theater of the hill he directs was of an boredom which exceeds the understanding. The director born in Lebanon in 1968, however, does not lack talent. We had been thrilled by his previous works. The blood of promises, composed of Littoral, Fire, Forests et Skieshe had also earned him the prize for the theater of the French Academy in 2009. We also said good of his recent and brilliant Square root of the verb to be .
What bad fly has bitten him? Where does the idea come from this play, which he wrote at 23, in 1991, in Canada, where he was exiled? He modified it but not sufficiently sufficiently, in the spring of the actors in Montpellier in June 2024. He should have created it last April in his native language, in Beirut, but it was canceled due to “Pressures and serious threats on certain artists, technicians and theater”, According to the director of the Le Monnot theater of the city.
War trauma
The beginning of the story is, however, promising. Against the background of war, bombings and power cuts, a mother, Nazha Houspille Neel, her son, because he reports from “The Armenian” A salad that smells of fish. She activates to prepare the marriage of her daughter Nelly absent, often asleep. “Narcolepsy is a gift from God in a country at war”welcomes his extroverted geniritor.
Locked in her room and in her dreams, Nelly keeps asking when they go to «Bebtdaé Pour Manger You Knequé ». Annoyed, Neel replied: ” Sunday “. At 17, the boy also has his problems. He claims his elder Walter, supposed to have gone to the hairdresser. Their dictatorial father and macho must bring back a sheep from the butcher for future guests. The energetic neighbor arrives loaded with victuals to lend a hand to the kitchen.
As often, Wajdi Mouawad talks about the trauma of war and the conflict between generations. He fled Lebanon, his native country, the age of ten. We understand that the theater is the therapy, but we don’t have to undergo it. The playwright makes us the blow ofWhile waiting for Godot . Obviously, neither Walter nor the fiancé of Nelly will come for the wedding. He practices the abyme of the theater, but without finesse. His avatar, the author of the play playing before our eyes, ignores himself how he can finish it and discuss it with the character Nelly. Wajdi Mouawad would he be taken to Pirandello?
We should be upset by what the protagonists are going through, worry about what they will happen. But their misfortunes indifferent us despite an interpretation with the cord. It goes in all directions, it shouts, it cries, it bleeds (ah, the scene of the slaughter of the sheep!). Let’s go quickly. But Wajdi Mouawad is not in a hurry. The show is painfully spread over two hours.
