crash Park – La vie d’une îLe

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crash Park – la vie d’une îlePhilippe Quesne

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Info & context 4

Credits 5

Homo ludens on a tropical island 7

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About the artists 10

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info context

date & time Fri 7 June 2019, 8.00 pmSat 8 June 2019, 8.00 pm

venue Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, Rabozaal

running time1 uur 40 minutesno interval

language language no problem

introductionby Aukje Verhoog 7.15 pm

meet the artist with Philip QuesneSat 8 June - after the performance

credits

conception, direction and set design Philippe Quesne

with Isabelle Angotti, Jean-Charles Dumay, Léo Gobin, Yuika Hokama, Sébastien Jacobs, Thomas Suire, Thérèse Songue, Gaëtan Vourc’h

assistant François-Xavier Rouyer

animals costumes Corine Petitpierre

original soundtrack Pierre Desprats

musical excerpts Shea & Jasha Klebe, Pan Sonic, Frank Martin, Riz Ortolani, Debussy, Daniel Johnston, Chopin, Delinquent Habit, Frank Sinatra

light Thomas Laigle, Mickaël Nodin

sound Samuel Gutman

stage manager Marc Chevillon

stage technician Joachim Fosset

dresser Pauline Jakobiak

dramaturgy Camille Louis

film César Vayssié

camera assistant Małgorzata Rabczuk

film extras Rodolphe Auté, Marc Chevillon, Yvan Clédat, Cyril Gomez-Mathieu, Erwan Ha Kyoon Larcher, Pauline Jakobiak, Thomas Laigle, Nicole Mersey, Mickaël Nodin, Sandra Orain, Perle Palombe, Martine Servain, Emilien Tessier, Carole Zacharewicz

set and props Ateliers Nanterre-Amandiers (Élodie Dauguet, Marie Maresca, Yvan Assael, Jérôme Chrétien)

production Nanterre-Amandiers

with support from Fondation d’entreprise Hermèsprogramme ‘New Settings’

coproduction Théâtre National de Bretagne (Rennes), HAU (Berlin), Münchner Kammerspiele (Munich), Onassis Cultural Centre (Athènes)

world premiere 20 November 2018 Nanterre-Amandiers, Frankrijk

websiteNanterre-Amandiers

homo ludens on a troPical island

by Daniël Bertina

Aerophobia – the fear of flying – has long been among the top 3 most common phobias in the Netherlands, and ranks high among the ten commonest worldwide. Is it the unpredictability of the technology and the sense of powerlessness that comes with being at its mercy, in combination with exhaustion and the yearning for a holiday? French theatre-maker and scenographer Philippe Quesne (1970) links this all-too-common fear to a beloved motif from world literature and cinema: castaways washing up on an idyllic desert island far, far away from the inhabited and civilised world, offered the chance to build a new life – but with unfore-seen consequences. From classic novels such as Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1954) through to contemporary films such as Cast Away (2000) and TV shows like Lost (2004), this premise enjoys an enduring popularity. Now, Quesne gives this theme a unique, ironic twist with Crash Park – La vie d’une île, a wordless visual theatre performance – part disaster movie, part fever dream.

Quesne began his career as a fine artist and spent ten years working as a set designer. In 2003 he established his own perfor-mance ensemble, Vivarium Studio, specialising in a unique form of visual theatre – often wordless and with a slow, pared-down pace, the story enfolding step by step. Many of his productions have the same seemingly simple premise: the characters are ripped from their ordinary lives and end up in a wilderness, where they try to create a new life for themselves. In La Mélancolie des Dragons (2008), for example, he showed a group of hard rockers whose beaten-up Citroën breaks down in a snowy landscape, in which they decide to build their anti-commercial take on an amusement park. Big Bang (2010) also featured the theme of castaways: following a nuclear explosion, six people get strand-ed on a small island, where together they rewrite world history. In Swamp Club (2013) – made to celebrate the company’s 10th anniversary – Quesne placed an arts centre in the middle of an ominous, marshy landscape, where the disorientated artists find themselves unexpectedly getting help from a giant mole. Quesne often refers back to previous productions in his work. The mole first appeared in Swamp Club, then got its own project with La nuit

des Taupes, and also makes a brief cameo on the island at the start of Crash Park. Like an omnipotent social scientist-cum-biolo-gist, Quesne transposes his characters from everyday reality into a new biotope where the audience can study them at length, like stick insects in a terrarium. Back to Crash Park – La vie d’une île. Language, in this production, is limited to a few exclamations. The personalities of the eight nameless characters also take a deliberate back seat. The only things the survivors have managed to take with them from the plane wreck are a few suitcases and a stack of books by Daniel Defoe, Gilles Deleuze, Jules Verne and William Shakespeare. In their new habitat, they try to entertain each other with song, dance and theatre. In a series of inventive tableaux, Quesne shows how human beings – as a social species – try to work with others to build a new existence, far away from smartphones and social media, the rat race of commerce and the pressure to per-form. The soundscape plays an important role in this. It alternates between intense pounding sound effects that seem to have been lifted straight from a Hollywood action movie, classical compositions by Debussy, and the pomp of Vangelis’ Conquest of Paradise, along with surprising choices in a nod to the cogno-scenti, such as the underground hiphop classic Tres Delinquentes (1996) by Delinquent Habits, and True Love Will Find You in the End by outsider musician Daniel Johnston. The music provides an ironic commentary on the action, while the inventive set cleverly suggests space and depth. Every scene is rich with layers of meaning and references to other artworks. Dressed in primitive costumes made of straw and leaves, several men dance a ballet, while one sings an aria. Using palm fronds as weapons, two others engage in a duel to the soundtrack of romantic piano music, like proud fighting roosters. The mood is at turns playful, drily funny and utterly serious. The action culminates in a rain dance. As the survivors move across the stage like a chaotic swarm of birds, it begins to rain. Crash Park – La vie d’une île encompasses a wealth of themes: the mil-lions-of-years-old hierarchy of dominance, the struggle to repro-duce, evolution, social interaction, the necessity of play and fun, the urge to control nature and man’s search for meaning. Living on a diet of bananas, coconuts and octopus, Quesne’s characters embody the notion of the homo ludens: man using play to give meaning to his existence, thereby creating a new

world. But even on their idyllic island, danger lurks. How deep is their veneer of civilisation? Unfettered by convention, does man ultimately choose sophistication or brutality? Crash Park – La vie d’une île focuses on this balancing act. With gentle mockery, without ever becoming bitter, harsh or judgmental, Quesne shows the way that people muddle their way through this existence. ‘Just look at them blundering along,’ he seems to be saying, ‘that’s what we’re all like...’

Philippe Quesne (1970) attended art school in Paris before working as a production designer in the theatre and opera for ten years. In 2003 he founded Vivarium Studio, a laboratory for theatricalinnovation where actors, visual artists and musicians come together. Here he creates productions that truly form their own biotope, allowing him to dissect the human microcosm, often with a gently ironic touch. After La Démangeaison des ailes (2003) Quesne created works including Des expériences (2004), D’après nature (2006), L’Effet de Serge (2007) – winning him an Obie Award at the Under the Radar Festival in New York - La Mélancolie des dragons (2008), Big Bang (2010) and Swamp Club (2013). That same year Philippe Quesne also made Anamorphosis together with four Japanese actresses at the Komaba Agora Theater in Tokyo. Next Day was a production he made with a group of children in 2014 at the CAMPO arts centre in Ghent. Quesne has exhibited his instal-

lations at various expositions and also designs performances and interventions for public spaces. Since 2014, Philippe Quesne has been director of the Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers, Centre Dramatique National. In 2016 he created Caspar Western Friedrich at the Münchner Kammerspiele and in 2019 Farm Fatale. He was guest of honour at the Brussels Kunstenfestivaldesarts with La Nuit de taupes (Welcome to Caveland!). In 2018 he directed his first opera, Usher, which pre-miered at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, for which he also created the stage design. This performance of Crash Park – La vie d’une île marks Quesne’s debut at the Holland Festival.

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textDaniël Bertina

text editorKaren Welling

translationAntoinette Fawcett, Emma Rault, Sarah Welling design thonik

lay-out Mark Drillich, Erna Theys

photography© Martin Argyrogloportraitt Philippe Quesne © Manuel Obadia Wills

© Holland Festival, 2019

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