Édouard Levé: Works. Self-portrait. Suicide

"Ten people talk about a man in the past tense without ever mentioning his name. Over the course of an hour, they discuss various topics relating to him. In the final edit, the statements of each of them alternate, sometimes contradicting one another. These testimonies make up an ambivalent portrait. Despite the large number of stories told, his identity remains unclear, his name and face unknown. He could be anyone. The director filmed ten of his friends answering questions about him. The assignment was: "Talk about me in the past tense, third person. Imagine I've been dead for ten years. You're answering an investigator.' "
 

An index of 533 unrealized, often unrealizable artworks; brief affirmative statements in the first person; the author's last text reporting on the life of a friend who committed suicide (ten days after the manuscript was submitted to the publisher, the author took his own life). The three seminal books by French photographer, conceptual artist and writer Édouard Levy (1965-2007), as well as his enigmatic and unique personality, are the material for a new production by Viktoria Vashova, who has already adapted Barnes' The Noise of Time for Meetfactory. The author's simple, suggestive, at the same time subversive, provocative and radical literary style offers questions that are both theatrical and scenically inspiring: does a work of art come into being through its physical realization, or already at the moment it is mentally conceived? How does the artistic solitude in which one finds oneself, absorbed in one's own thinking, contrast with the work of theatre, which by its very nature is engaged in collectivity and collaboration? In what way does the absurdity of language refer to the nature of life itself? How do coincidence, unawareness, and perceptual accidents testify to accuracy, truth, and creative freedom? In other words: "An original and riveting production full of intertwined, unpredictable events in which the fates of the characters become connected in unexpected ways."

Édouard Levé: Works. Self-portrait. Suicide

Translation: Veronika Zemanová, Sara Vybíralová
Director: Viktoria Vasova et al.
Set and costumes: Zuzana Sceranková
Music: Džian Baban
Light Design: Jiří Zewll 
Dramaturgy: Matěj Samec
Production: Magda Juránková
Intern: Stela Joudal 
Stage Production: Ondřej Kohout, Edgar Schwarz, Štěpán Pařízek, Štěpán Alexandr, Milan Šimánek, Milan Kosek, Vladimír Drbohlav, Dan Jílek, Truhlářství Liška - Roman Liška, Signpek, s.r.o. - Vratislav Kotek, Andrea Gájová, Jan Arndt a Andrea Černá

Cast: Milada Vyhnálková, Jiří Svoboda, Štěpán Lustyk, Mikuláš Čížek

Photography: Andrea Černá
Graphic: Martin Groch 

Opening night: 2 October 2024 at the MeetFactory Theatre

Admission:
300 CZK
200 CZK for students and citizens with permanent residence in Prague 5