L'Étang – Holland Festival

A child feels unloved by his mother. To test her, he pretends to be drowning in the pond. With her adaptation of Robert Walser’s Der Teich (‘The Pond’), director Gisèle Vienne explores complex family relationships and examines the ways family members interact with each other. Vienne plays with all the available theatrical means to make the spoken and the unsaid visible. She creates a mysterious tension between those present and absent. Vienne indirectly shows the deceptive contradictions between what is said and what takes place unsaid. Like her previous work, the piece delves into philosophical issues surrounding social norms. In doing so the director does not shy away from humanity’s dark sides.

In 1902, Robert Walser wrote − in Swiss German − the short piece Der Teich as a present for his sister. It was only published after his death. Walser was a master at describing inner turmoil and unspoken tension, emotions and associations. Vienne takes this story about a complex mother-son relationship, in which the son simulates suicide, as a basis to realise her ideas about lurking violence in a domestic environment. Cast Two actresses play all the roles.

Apart from Fritz, Adèle Haenel plays the roles of all the children in the piece, while Ruth Vega Fernandez plays the roles of the two present mothers and the father. Vienne: ‘The actors assume a different social role. Whether this is a man or a woman, a child or a mother, makes no real difference.’ Family violence Vienne often gravitates towards dark subjects. In L’Étang, she focuses on violence in a more specifically familial setting. She examines the social roles people play in a family situation and the ways they communicate with each other. Of particular interest to her is how different layers of communication can diverge from and contradict each other. Someone may talk about love, while the facial expression and body language suggest violence. Text Different layers and forms of expression, possibly happening at a same time, can all be seen as ‘texts’, various ways of speaking. ‘Text is not limited to the words you can hear’, Vienne explains. ‘We’re culturally educated to ‘read’, hear, see particular layers or disregard others. Our system of perception is culturally build up, but can of course move and change, and art forms for example can contribute to this movement. It is interesting, through the consciousness we can develop of our perceptive system, to understand the normative system we’re in, analyse it, and understand the hierarchy between words and nonverbal expression.’ Levels of interpretation In the staging of L’Étang, there are numerous levels of interpretation, three of which are the most readily comprehensible. The first is the story itself as it is read literally. The second is a person who imagines this story, fantasizes, hallucinates, certain elements are extremely precise and vivid, while others are fuzzier or even absent. These differences in perception can be visible, noticeable, in a variety of ways on stage, for example by means of different degrees of physical embodiment and disembodiment. Also, through the various treatments of temporalities which is very characteristic in Vienne’s use of movement, of music, light, and space, as well as the interpretation of the text, and which in particular convey the sensory perception of time. The different temporalities participate in this layered composition, which allows their formal articulation and the deployment of the experience of the present, between the real and the fantasized, constituted in particular by memory, the past, and the anticipated future. And then the third level, which is what we see if we don’t follow the conventions of the theater: two actresses in a white box, Adèle Haenel and Ruth Vega Fernandez, who are performing this piece by Robert Walser.

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based on the original story Der Teich by Robert Walser concept Gisèle Vienne direction Gisèle Vienne scenography Gisèle Vienne dramaturgy, direction Gisèle Vienne performed by Adèle Haenel, Ruth Vega Fernandez light design Yves Godin sound design Adrien Michel musical direction Stephen O’Malley original music Stephen O’Malley, François J. Bonnet tour assistant Sophie Demeyer external overlook Dennis Cooper, Anja Röttgerkamp French translation Lucie Taïeb based on the German translation by Händl Klaus, Raphael Urweider collaboration to the scenography Maroussia Vaes conception dolls Gisèle Vienne creation dolls Raphaël Rubbens, Dorothéa Vienne-Pollak, Gisèle Vienne, Théâtre National de Bretagne stage set production Nanterre-Amandiers CDN set Gisèle Vienne, Camille Queval, Guillaume Dumont accessoires Gisèle Vienne, Camille Queval, Guillaume Dumont costumes Gisèle Vienne, Camille Queval hairdressing Mélanie Gerbeaux make-up Mélanie Gerbeaux technical manager Richard Pierre sound engineer Adrien Michel, Mareike Trillhaas light manager Iannis Japiot, Samuel Dosière stage manager Antoine Hordé performance created in collaboration with Kerstin Daley-Baradel special thanks to Etienne Bideau-Rey, Nelson Canart, Patric Chiha, Zac Farley, Pauline Jakobiak, Jean-Paul Vienne, César Van Looy production and distribution Alma Office, Anne-Lise Gobin, Alix Sarrade, Camille Queval, Andrea Kerr administration Etienne Hunsinger, Giovanna Rua production DACM coproduction Nanterre-Amandiers CDN, Théâtre National de Bretagne, Maillon, Théâtre de Strasbourg – Scène européenne, Holland Festival, Fonds Transfabrik – Fonds franco-allemand pour le spectacle vivant, Centre Culturel André Malraux, Scène nationale de Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy, La Comédie de Genève, Le Manège, scène nationale – Reims, La Filature, MC2: Grenoble, Ruhrtriennale, TANDEM - Scène nationale, Kaserne Basel, International Summer Festival Kampnagel Hamburg, Festival d’Automne à Paris, théâtre Garonne - Scène européenne – Toulouse, CCN2–Centre chorégraphique national de Grenoble..., BIT Teatergarasjen, Bergen, Black Box Teater with the support of CN D Centre national de la danse, Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne | MC93 – Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint-Denis, Théâtre Vidy Lausanne thanks to Point Ephémère, SMEM, Fribourg

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