“My mother always said to Live Big.
Live as much as I could.”
In Alice Birch’s new play, we are confronted by three generations of women, Carol, Anna and Bonnie, who are mother, daughter and granddaughter. They exist in three different time zones (the 1970s, 80s and 90s for Carol, the 1990s and 2000s for Anna, and the 2030s for Bonnie), but the story of their lives is told simultaneously, the dialogues and actions are echoing from one space to another. For each, the chaos of what has come before brings with it a painful legacy. Three stories intertwine in such a way that every audience member will have their own unique interaction with the show…
This is theatre doing what it does best: taking on the big taboos — suicide, guilt, loss, addiction, regret — and illuminating them beautifully to provide a shared understanding and relief.
Text
Alice Birch
Direction
Christophe Rauck
Translation
Séverine Magois
With
Audrey Bonnet
Eric Challier
Mathilde Charbonneaux
David Clavel
Servane Ducorps
Noémie Gantier
David Houri
Sarah Karabasnikoff
Lilea Le Borgne
Lyes Salem
Set Designer
Alain Lagarde
Playwright
Marianne Ségol–Samoy
Music
Sylvain Jacques
Lighting Designer
Olivier Oudiou
Costume Designer
Coralie Sanvoisin
Make-Up and wigs
Cécile Kretschmar
Text
Alice Birch
Direction
Christophe Rauck
Translation
Séverine Magois
With
Audrey Bonnet
Eric Challier
Mathilde Charbonneaux
David Clavel
Servane Ducorps
Noémie Gantier
David Houri
Sarah Karabasnikoff
Lilea Le Borgne
Lyes Salem
Set Designer
Alain Lagarde
Playwright
Marianne Ségol–Samoy
Music
Sylvain Jacques
Lighting Designer
Olivier Oudiou
Costume Designer
Coralie Sanvoisin
Make-Up and wigs
Cécile Kretschmar
Alice Birch is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter whose recent plays include [BLANK] (DonmarWarehouse / Clean Break), Orlando (Schaubühne, Berlin) and Anatomy of a Suicide (Royal Court Theatre).
She has written for television, adapting Normal People (with Sally Rooney and Mark O’Rowe, for which she and Sally were nominated for an Emmy award) and Conversations with Friends.
She was the Story Editor for Season 2 of Succession (HBO) and, more recently, Lead Writer and Executive Producer on the critically acclaimed Dead Ringers, starring Rachel Weisz, for Annapurna and Amazon. Her debut feature, Lady Macbeth, won five British Independent Film Awards in 2017, including Best Screenplay. Her second feature was an adaptation of Graham Swift’s novel Mothering Sunday for Number 9 Films and Film 4. More recently, she co-wrote The Wonder with Sebastián Lelio and Emma Donoghue. She was also awarded the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize 2018, the George Devine Award (for Revolt. She said. Revolt again), and the Arts Foundation Award for Playwriting.
Christophe Rauck founded his company in 1995 with actors from the Théâtre du Soleil. From 2003 to 2005, he was director of the Théâtre du Peuple de Bussang, where he created Le Dragon [The Dragon] by Evgueni Schwartz, La Vie de Galilée [Life of Galileo] by Bertolt Brecht and Le Revizor [The Government Inspector] by Nikolai Gogol. He then staged Getting Attention by Martin Crimp at the Théâtre des Abbesses, and L’Araignée de l’Éternel based on texts by Claude Nougaro, and Le Mariage de Figaro by Beaumarchais at the Comédie-Française before directing the TGP centre dramatique national de Saint-Denis from 2008 to 2013. He created Coeur ardent [The Ardent Heart] by Alexander Ostrovski, Têtes rondes et têtes pointues [Round Heads and Pointed Heads] by Bertolt Brecht, Cassé by Rémi De Vos and Les Serments indiscrets [Careless Vows] by Pierre de Marivaux (Grand prix du Syndicat de la critique). During this period, he also staged Phèdre by Racine and two operas by Monteverdi. In 2014, he was appointed director of the Théâtre du Nord and its affiliated school, the École du Nord, in Lille. He has directed three plays by Rémi De Vos (Toute ma vie j’ai fait des choses que je ne savais pas faire, Ben oui mais enfin bon and Départ volontaire), Figaro divorce by Odön von Horvath (Prix Georges-Lerminier du Syndicat de la critique: best provincial production), Comme il vous plaira [As You Like It] by Shakespeare and recently, two plays by Sara Stridsberg: La Faculté des rêves [The Faculty of Dreams] and Dissection d’une chute de neige [Anatomy of a Snowfall]. In 2017, he created Molière’s Amphitryon in Moscow, with eight former students of Piotr Fomenko. Invited to the 2018 Festival d’Avignon with the young actors graduating from Year 5 of the École du Nord, Christophe Rauck presented Le Pays lointain
(Un arrangement) by Jean-Luc Lagarce.
Since January 2021, Christophe Rauck has been the director of the Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers.
In July 2022, for the 76th Festival d’Avignon, he staged Shakespeare’s Richard II, which opened the 22-23 season at the Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers.
From 21st to 23rd March: Théâtre en série(s)
What do the series Normal People and Succession have in common with the play Anatomy of a Suicide? The answer is British playwright Alice Birch, who has won awards for both her playwriting and her screenwriting. This is an opportunity to look at the links between series and theatre, at a time when we are binge-watching long-running shows and series are taking on Shakespearean heroes.
Saturday, March 22nd at 3 p.m
A Saturday with Christophe Rauck
Thursday, March 27th 2025
Aftershow
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