Philoctetes
A palimpsest Heiner Müller’s Philoctetes is not an adaptation of the Greek play but a palimpsest which erases and covers the original work, and lets it seep through like in an x-ray picture. Francis Bacon and Picasso used the same process with paintings by Velasquez.
A Philoctetes without God(s)
In this Philoctetes there is no chorus, no deus ex machina, no sudden appearance of Heracles that would make a happy ending possible. This is a Philoctetes without God(s). Heiner Müller does not compete with Sophocles, he breaks down, destroys and deconstructs the tragic mould, the Greek statuary devised by the German philosophers who, in the early 19th century, invented the Germans’ Greece, which was meant to rival the Greece contrived by Racine and the French. Müller complexifies the radical form of theatre Brecht had used in the early 1930ies, the “Lehrstück” which, with Müller, is akin to Artaud’s “théâtre de la cruauté”.
Jean Jourdheuil
translation
Jean-Louis Besson et Jean Jourdheuil
director
Jean Jourdheuil
director assistant
Youness Anzane
stage, costumes
Mark Lammert
stage assitant
Emmanuelle Bischoff
with
Marc Barbé, Maurice Bénichou, Marc Berman
text edited by the Éditions de Minuit
From Thursday 5 to Friday 6 November 2009 - 20h30
Saturday 7 November 2009 - 20h30
From Tuesday 10 to Saturday 14 November 2009 - 20h30
Sunday 15 November 2009 - 15h00
From Tuesday 17 to Saturday 21 November 2009 - 20h30