COMA

In this extreme text, as if tearing every bodily fibre, Patrice Chéreau, all tensed nerves and muscles, brings to life a triumphant and moving existence.

- JEAN-PIERRE LÉONARDINI, L'HUMANITÉ

One of the key figures in contemporary European opera, theatre and cinema, the indefatigable French director, producer and actor, Patrice Chéreau, tackles unerringly the age in which he lives with a reading of Coma, by Pierre Guyotat, focusing on issues such as loneliness, hatred, anxiety, pain and the liberation from certain traditions.

Confidence in the world surrounds this autobiographic tale of initiation by Guyotat, a controversial and contentious political writer who, in this work, deals with the creative and spiritual crisis in which he sees himself immersed. Chéreau in turn gives voice and body to the painful words through which the author reflects on death and depression, the desperate demand for expression, suicidal impulses, the power of the senses and the urgent need to create and to exist.

It is not the first time that Patrice Chéreau and director Thierry Thieû Niang have worked together on stage. In 2008, they joined forces in a production of La Douleur, by Marguerite Duras, in which both directed the actress Dominique Blanc to critical acclaim.

Coma premiered at the Thèâtre de l'Odéon in Paris in April 2009.

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