Philippe Vincent (Stage and movie director, actor, writer): August 14th – September 2nd, 2019

Since the creation of the Compagnie Scènes at Saint-Etienne in 1988, Philippe Vincent works to invent a radically contemporary dramaturgic form where the narrative and aesthetic principles of film come to the aid of the language of theater. At the head of what can be seen as a collective of artists, he explores a path which seeks to immerse the audience in the interior of the theatrical production itself. His stagings are composed of strong images that collide with one another, an exploration of the rapport voice/music, most often with musicians on stage, and actors on the thin line between disembodiment and emotion. Trained at the school of the Comédie de Saint- Étienne, he based his company for a time in Venissieux at the occasion of a Müller project in 1999. Scènes was subsequently located at the Subsistances in Lyon. Intimately familiar with the writing of Heiner Müller, Philippe Vincent has staged nine of his plays. He created Anatomy Titus Fall of Rome at the Festival d’Avignon (2001), then at the Théâtre de La Croix Rousse. He has also tackled the universe of Shakespeare with Waiting for Richard (2000), Hamlet (1996) and Timon of ’Athens (1991). In 2006, he staged Fatzer by Brecht which was at the heart of the dramaturgical questions concerning Müller. There, he carried out an extraordinary theatrical experiment, continuing the search for a different rapport with the audience such as that initiated by it’s author in the didactic pieces. The staging was based on the four cornerstones of the Scènes universe: theater, cinema, music and the voluntary upheaval of bearings as much on stage as in the audience. Philippe Vincent staged several plays by Thomas Martin, actually dramaturge at the Volksbühne, including My country in pieces (2002), and Patriotism (2005). He regularly works abroad where he has imagined unique projects such as Waiting for Godard (2009), a theatrical cabaret with actors/singers from the Volksbühne and Bull’s Eye: a history of details, with 5 multidisciplinary artists coming from Germany, Norway, Finland, and Portugal (in Portugal, then in Marseille, the 2013 Capital of Culture). For 5 years, he has collaborated with the Franco-Libyan author Riad Gahmi co-creating An Arab in my mirror in Cairo (presented in New York in 2011) and Where and when we died (2013), and together they prepare Gonzo – a love drama in the world of X – co-production TNP-Villeurbanne and the Comédie de St-Etienne (2016), and a collaborative work with the Collectif Béneeré, a collective of artists from Burkina Faso. They will created together in april 2015 : Total Indépendance at the CITO in Ouagadougou. He served from January to March 2016 the Permanent Theatre of Gwenael Morin, presenting four shows including the creation of Hamlet-Machine with David Mambouch, Alwynne Pritchard and Thorolf Thuestad’s collaboration, at Le Théâtre du Point du Jour in Lyon.

The Project:

While staying in Ytre Arna, Philippe Vincent and Scènes Théâtre Cinéma will be collaborating with Neither Nor on the production Underground.