During its creation, the ateliers Berthier, in 2013, The Reunification of the two Koreas had taken the audience back hair. Looks innocuous, twenty short scenes of Joel his plays, which form the whole, dealt with love in a corner annoying, particular. And the author makes it a pleasure not to be judgmental. His plays show us life in all its forms. There is neither good nor bad. Neither traitors nor faithful. It all depends on the point of view of where we are. And it is better to be wary of appearances. There are these parents who seem to be protectors, but it may be crazy, others who show themselves to be loving, as this teacher is adorable, but can be a paedophile, this prostitute who asks only to be loved by this pastor who met another woman, this woman who leaves her boyfriend taken aback, because ” love is not enough “. In short, his plays shows us humanity in all its complexity in what he calls his ” a sequence of moments without a unit is declared, or consistent narrative.”

to address this waltz feelings and a sham concocted by his plays, the stage director Jacques Vincey, director of the centre national dramatique de Tours – Théâtre Olympia, has avoided the pitfall that would have been a simple recreation of the “show” initial – his plays describes himself as “a writer of show” and focuses on the writing board with the actors. He found the parade by making two choices : that of working with actors from Singapore and play in their common language : English. These two factors of distortion transform and change the focal length of the room. The text for the first time been translated into English by Marc Goldberg. A language that has a different rhythm, a different texture to The Reunification of the two Koreas. The English words short fuse and go to the essential, to the marrow of the conflict between the characters. There was the groom who gave “just a kiss” a long time ago to the four sisters of his bride. The husband, whose wife has Alzheimer’s disease who has lost memory, which explains the perfection of their meeting, which is akin to the ” reunification of the two Koreas “. “When we met it was perfection. We were like two halves having lost each other and getting back together. It was wonderful. It was like North Korea and South Korea opening up theirs frontiers and reunifying. “

” The Reunification of the two Koreas “, by Joël his plays, directed by Jacques Vincey. Show in English with French surtitles. Until the 24th of November at the NSC of the Towers, and from 28 November to 1 December at the MC93 Bobigny.

© Christophe Raynaud de Lage

The irony of a text, delicious

The scene sounds like a tatami of judo with this rectangle of blue carpet, lit by tall floodlights – nice job of the lighting designer Marie-Christine Soma – and surrounded by scaffolding with, at the bottom two racks, and chairs. The performers change for every scene before you go up there and, like boxers in love, give the best of themselves. We wrap, we kiss, we grabbed, we separate, we left… At the top of the comedians, the French subtitles will help those who are struggling to follow the English. The staging of Jacques Vincey is sober.

Continuing his work of appropriation of the piece, the director of the CDN Towers trust a few sound effects and a guitarist to create an atmosphere that does negation not Ingmar Bergman, and wrap the piece of beautiful choruses sung by the actors. And also a short sequence filmed in a carousel of autotamponneuses of Singapore which acts as a breath and a nod to the distinctive setting of his plays. The mise en abyme, the mirror that we tends Jacques Vincey works wonderfully. We rediscover in this English version of The Reunification of the two Koreas the whole irony of the words and text that is delicious who ventured into the labyrinths of the human soul. Five years after its creation, The Reunification has improved as a wine.

” The Reunification of the two Koreas “, by Joël his plays, directed by Jacques Vincey. Show in English with French surtitles. Until the 24th of November at the NSC of the Towers, and from 28 November to 1 December at the MC93 Bobigny.