31
Oct/17

BAM NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL: STATE OF SIEGE

31
Oct/17
(photo by Jean Louis Fernandez)

Théâtre de la Ville returns to BAM with a timely take on Albert Camus’s State of Siege (photo by Jean Louis Fernandez)

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
November 2-4, $35-$110
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.theatredelaville-paris.com

“When State of Siege first opened in Paris, there was no dissenting voice among the critics. Truly, few plays have ever enjoyed such a unanimous slashing,” Albert Camus wrote in a 1958 preface to a collection of four of his plays, including State of Siege. “This is the more deplorable since I have never given up thinking that State of Siege, with all is shortcomings, is, of all my writings, the one that most resembles me.” He also insisted that the 1948 allegorical drama about the search for liberty amid a spreading plague was not an adaptation of his 1947 novel, The Plague. Regardless of what has come before, State of Siege is now in good hands with Théâtre de la Ville, Paris, which returns to BAM November 2-4 with a timely take on the play. The company was previously at BAM with its unique and inventive versions of Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author in 2014 and Ionesco’s Rhinoceros in 2012. Serge Maggiani stars as the Plague, with Hugues Quester as the Man, Alain Libolt as the Judge, Valérie Dashwood as the Secretary, Jauris Casanova as the Alcade, Matthieu Dessertine as Diego, and Philippe Demarle as Nada. The inimitable Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota directs, with sets by Yves Collet, lighting by Collet and Christophe Lemaire, sound by David Lesser, costumes by Fanny Brouste, and video by Mike Guermyet. On November 3 at 6:00 in Wendy’s Subway Reading Room at the BAM Fisher, Demarcy-Mota will give a free lecture on the work and its relevance to what is going on in the world today.