During a performance of the play Berenice at the Théâtre de la Ville – Sarah Bernhardt, the star actress, had been questioned by a disgruntled spectator. Theater director Emmanuel Demarcy-Motta speaks of an “isolated” case.
The recent questioning of Isabelle Huppert by a spectator in a Parisian theater questions the attitude of the audience during a play and their complex reactions to confusing and even transgressive stagings.
Read alsoBetween praise and insults, the audience of Bérénice and Isabelle Huppert gets heated
The star actress has been performing in recent weeks Berenice , a key figure in Racine’s repertoire, at the Sarah Bernhardt theater. During one of the performances, a man addressed her and said: “We don’t understand what you’re saying, Isabelle.”. The actress nevertheless continued. Between Isabelle Huppert’s fans and the Racine audience, the tone rose until they left the theater.
Romeo Castellucci is known for his divisive proposals, often far removed from the original text. This time, he decided to only repeat Bérénice’s monologues, with tirades where the voice is sometimes modified by computer or marked by voluntary stuttering, AFP noted.
“The theater, precisely, is a place where actors expose themselves. This is what makes them so vulnerable, even when they are very recognized. »
Florence Naugrette, professor of history and theater theory at La Sorbonne
“Since the end of the 19th century, the norm has tended to be respect for the work and the artists. Silence is therefore required and public demonstrations postponed until the end of the show., recalls Alice Folco, lecturer in performing arts at the University of Grenoble. However, puts Florence Naugrette, professor of history and theater theory at La Sorbonne, into perspective, “the theater, precisely, is a place where actors expose themselves. This is what makes them so vulnerable, even when they are very recognized..
“Live performance, by definition, includes this risk: we are afraid for a dancer that he will fall and for an actor, that he will have a memory lapse or be arrested. A show where there is no longer this risk, it’s no longer theater, it’s cinema”, she adds. Isabelle Huppert has “not bothered at all”assures AFP the director of the Sarah Bernhardt Theater, Emmanuel Demarcy-Motta, evoking a “skid” emanating from a “isolated person”.
According to him, such an incident only happened once in around twenty performances. But he is “important to prevent any form of self-censorship, both for the artist, who would be afraid of being questioned, and for the public who would like Racine to be returned to them and to censor artistic forms that do not correspond to what he had planned to see”.
A position assumed by Romeo Castellucci. In 2019, he told AFP that“we don’t go to the theater, to the opera, to see confirmation of what we already know”however refusing the term of «provocation». These reactions can “join the indignation that seizes part of the public when we touch the classics since the 1960s”whether it be «in criticism (literary, editor’s note) and in the productions »says Olivier Goetz, lecturer in theater studies at the University of Lorraine.
These public demonstrations are, however, not new, underlines Jean-Claude Yon, theater historian and director of studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. “Since the 17th century in France, the theater has been an arena where artists expect reactions from the audience”. It’s only“at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the public became calmer, at the time when theater became an activity reserved for a certain elite”he said, explaining that this coincides with “the moment when we start to make the room dark”.
Incidents do not prejudge the success of a work: Berenice was quick “archi-complete” and went on an international tour before being picked up in Paris “next season, because there is very strong demand”announced Mr. Demarcy-Motta.