L a Note

« Le monde attend d'être nommé. Il n'est rien que ce vague prétexte. Quand tu es mordu par le rat, tu écris ton rapport : une note suffit. Quand le pneu crève, une note. Quand le gâteau est bon, une note. Quand l'enfant naît, une note. Quand la mort frappe, une note. La chose peut bien précéder la formule, celle-ci seulement sanctionne son apparition, ou sa disparition. »

L e Français

H amlet quatrième

Cet Hamlet est le quatrième spectacle sous ce titre. J’ai déjà montré trois Hamlet très différents — que nous avions distingués par leur lieu de création, Hamlet Villette, en 2007 (à l’invitation de Frédéric Mazelly), Hamlet Ménagerie, en 2008 (à l’invitation de Marie-Thérèse Allier) et Hamlet Vanves, en 2010 (à l’invitation de José Alfarroba). J’avais prévenu que cette histoire ne finirait jamais pour moi et que, bien entendu, je m’approcherais d'Hamlet toute ma vie. Ceux qui ont vu les spectacles précédents savent qu’il ne s’agit que de rêveries qui s’accrochent plus ou moins à la matière textuelle — en général plutôt moins que plus — et que cette matière originelle est laissée à la disponibilité des interprètes de s’en saisir ou pas.

Yves-Noël Genod

L a Méthode

Le prof de danse, détendu aujourd'hui,  dit : « Si ça marche pour toi… », « Parfois les gens font le contraire de ce que je dis et ils dansent très bien. »

T he Contemplation of the Spectacle of Life with Appropriate Emotions

« I know of nothing in all drama more incomparable from the point of view of art, nothing more suggestive in its subtlety of observation, than Shakespeare's drawing of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. They are Hamlet's college friends. They have been his companions. They bring with them memories of pleasant days together. At the moment when they come across him in the play he is staggering under the weight of a burden intolerable to one of his temperament. The dead have come armed out of the grave to impose on him a mission at once too great and too mean for him. He is a dreamer, and he is called upon to act. He has the nature of the poet, and he is asked to grapple with the common complexity of cause and effect, with life in its practical realisation, of which he knows nothing, not with life in its ideal essence, of which he knows so much. He has no conception of what to do, and his folly is to feign folly. Brutus used madness as a cloak to conceal the sword of his purpose, the dagger of his will, but the Hamlet madness is a mere mask for the hiding of weakness. In the making of fancies and jests he sees a chance of delay. He keeps playing with action as an artist plays with a theory. He makes himself the spy of his proper actions, and listening to his own words knows them to be but 'words, words, words.' Instead of trying to be the hero of his own history, he seeks to be the spectator of his own tragedy. He disbelieves in everything, including himself, and yet his doubt helps him not, as it comes not from scepticism but from a divided will.

Of all this Guildenstern and Rosencrantz realise nothing. They bow and smirk and smile, and what the one says the other echoes with sickliest intonation. When, at last, by means of the play within the play, and the puppets in their dalliance, Hamlet 'catches the conscience' of the King, and drives the wretched man in terror from his throne, Guildenstern and Rosencrantz see no more in his conduct than a rather painful breach of Court etiquette. That is as far as they can attain to in 'the contemplation of the spectacle of life with appropriate emotions.' They are close to his very secret and know nothing of it. Nor would there be any use in telling them. They are the little cups that can hold so much and no more. »