Hammer and Sickle
ORIGINAL TITLE:Le Marteau et la Faucille
ARTIST:Julien Gosselin
France, 2019 | 60 min. | Parental Rating: 14 +
SINOPSIS
Adaptação do conto homônimo do americano Don DeLillo, o espetáculo é uma alegoria crítica aos excessos do capitalismo. Num ambiente que lembra um estúdio de gravação, todo banhado de luz vermelha, acompanhamos Jerold Bradway, ex-trader que vive numa prisão, ou no que parece ser um campo de detenção para crimes de colarinho branco, repleto de banqueiros e negociantes de arte que se apropriaram indevidamente de fortunas. Seguem imersos na solidão, e o único poder que lhes resta é relembrar suas vidas perdidas. Apresentado originalmente como um interlúdio da maratona de quase dez horas de Joueurs, Mao II et Les Noms, encenação de Julien Gosselin para romances de DeLillo, O Martelo e a Foice logo tornou-se uma obra independente. Em cena, vemos o ator Joseph Drouet narrar, de um só fôlego, o fluxo de consciência de Bradway e a paisagem de personagens que o permeiam. No seu discurso, misto de absurdo, fantasia e angústia, traz uma reflexão sobre a posse e a perda, a fragilidade dos homens, em seus sonhos e vínculos, e a falta de esperança.
HISTORY
Julien Gosselin studied at EPSAD, the Lille School of Dramatic Art, directed by Stuart Seide. In 2009, with six other actors of his class, he founded the company Si Vous Pouviez Lécher Mon Coeur (SVPLMC) and, in 2010, directed Genoa 01, by Fausto Paravidino. In 2011, he directed the French premiere of Anja Hilling’s Tristesse Animal Noir. Among his shows are Les Particules Élémentaires, by Michel Houellebecq, which premiered at the 2013 Festival d’Avignon; Je Ne Vous Ai Jamais Aimés (2014), a short play based on a text by Pascal Bouaziz; Le Père de Stéphanie Chaillou (2015); 2666, adapted from Roberto Bolaño’s book series and premiered in Avignon in 2015; 1993, created at the 2017 Festival de Marseille, from a text by Aurélien Bellanger. For the Avignon 2018 edition, he adapted and directed three novels by North-American Don DeLillo: Joueurs, Mao II, Les Noms. Invited by the Amsterdam International Theatre, he kept his work on DeLillo, adapting Falling Man in 2019. As part of the Printemps des Comédiens in Montpellier, he created Hammer and Sickle (2010), also by DeLillo. In 2022, Gosselin and Si Vous Pouviez Lécher Mon Coeur will settle in Calais, a port city in northern France.
CRITIC
“With few elements on stage, Julien Gosselin is able to translate this smart text with impressive mastery. It’s not easy to own the message from start to finish or follow the thread, but that’s not the point. Reality becomes a void, and the audience is both seduced and submerged by this whirlwind of numbers, but also by the fragility of these men who have lost everything and have nothing else to hold on to except a few memory scraps. How not to see them as zombies, bound to life only by a few pieces of a remnant of humanity: the image of a woman, her beauty, her smell, the laughter of children, a house. All this will never happen again.”
PIERRE SALLES, Le Bruit du Off Tribune
“When it comes to diving into the stinky guts of North-American society, what Bradway properly calls “the fumes of everlasting free enterprise”, no one beats DeLillo. But it is important noticing that Gosselin didn’t limit himself to make the text intelligible. First of all, due to the great quality of the short story adaptation, particularly with regard to the integration of dialogue with the monologue itself, but also because he orchestrated onstage a work which components mix or oppose wonderfully. Some people will be driven, others paralysed by anguish, but for this escalating of sounds and voices, ideas and images, colours and lights, very few will remain insensitive.”
