Bitef

14+15 th J_ -1_

CREDITS:

Original title:

La grande et fabuleuse

histoire du commerce

Creation:

Joël Pommerat

Compagnie Louis Brouillard Comédie de Béthune /Centre Dramatique National Nord Pas-de-Calais, Béthune 2011- Capitale régionale de la Culture, Sainte-Maxime / Le Carré, Théâtre de l'Union / Centre Dramatique National du Limousin, SaintValéry en Caux / Le Rayon Vert, Théâtre d'Arles / Scène conventionnée pour des écritures d'aujourd'hui, Théâtre d'Evreux /Scène nationale Evreux bouviers, CNCDC- Centre National de création et de diffusions culturelles de Châteauvallon, Le Parvis - Scène nationale Tarbes Pyrénées, Le Granit / Scène nationale de Belfort with the support of la Coupe d'Or, scène conventionnée de Rochefort. La Compagnie Louis Brouillard enjoys the support of the Ministry of Culture/Drac Ile-de-France and la Région Ile-de-France.

Artistic cooperation;

Philipe Carbonneaux

Casi

Eric Forterre, Ludovic Molière, Hervé

Blanc, Jean-Claude Perrin, Patrick Bebi

Lighting design:

Eric Soyer with Renaud

Fouquet

ATELIER 212

Set design:

Eric Soyer

Costume design:

Isabelle Deffin

Sound creation:

François Leymarie

Sound research:

Yann Priest

Music: ;

Antonin Leymarie

Video creation;

Renaud Rubiano

Technical management:

Emmanuel Abate

Construction of sets and props:

Thomas

Ramon - A travers Champs

Lighting master:

Renaud Fouquet

Sound and video Master:

Yann Priest

Stage master:

Jean-Pierre Constanziello,

Lorenzo Graouer or Elodie Prud'homme

Documentation:

Evelyne Pommerat

Photography:

Elisabeth Carecchio

Two stories, two periods. 19605. 2000 s. How the activity called commerce, selling, buying, which is at the very heart of our societies, affects how we think ourselves, it affects the way we perceive a human being, and our relations? I wanted to show how the logic of commerce can generate trouble and confusion in the mind, in particular with regard to our grand moral principles. To be a truly efficacious salesman, one must believe in it. If there is a technique in this profession based on the relationship with others, then it is to succeed to be sincere or "true" with the others whilst being more or less "false": to succeed to "produce" the authentic.

This paradox, which actors are familiar with, in the case of salesmen becomes a curse because unlike the actor who can easily find the boundaries between the "stage" and the 'Teal life” the salesman can lose his way as if in a labyrinth. The frontiers can slowly disappear within and without him. A day comes when the salesman forgets to remove his mask after the representation. His mask becomes his skin. This thinking espouses the necessities and the logic of his profession of seduction and persuasion. It becomes impossible to distinguish the boundary between artifice and truth in within and without him. His relationship with the others crumbles along with any possibility of trust in the others. Trust - a word which loses all meaning and all value. In showing these personages of professional salesmen, at the bottom of the system's hierarchy, like soldiers slightly distraught but still convinced and loyal, I wanted above all to speak about all of us, ordinary citizens, immersed in this world of false appearances and true values turned about and instrumentalised more or less consciously. We are no doubt also deceived by the "great and fabulous" confusion of history. Winning and losing for better or for worse.

Joël Pommerai

was born in 1953. He discontinued his schooling at the age of sixteen, and two years later took up acting. In 1990, he directed his first text in Théâtre Clave! in Paris. On the same occasion, he gathered his theatre troupe and named it Louis Brouillard. In the following period, he approached various texts written and directed in a process which could be define« as "text is written together with actor durin rehearsals". After numerous performances the troupe starts touring in 2001 both through France and abroad. For his artistic work, JoélPommerat received the award Molière de L'auteur francophone vivant, te Molière des Compagnies. Until June 2013, he is an associate artist with Odéon-Théâtr de L'Europe.