© Matthieu Bareyre
The tour of _jeanne_ dark_ has stopped, but Marion Siefert offers a digital version of her show on November 18, 19 and 20 at 8:30 p.m. on Instagram. To do this, simply log in or create your account and subscribe to the @_jeanne_dark_ account. This solo performance by Helena de Laurens will, for many reasons, be an essential show of this season.
Definitely, Marion Siefert is giving the theater a real facelift. After The Great Sleep who revealed it to the profession, and Du salea duo for a rapper and a dancer who performed in Aubervilliers, it is still on the stage of the Commune, where she is an associate artist that son _jeanne_ dark_ opens wide the doors of live performance, brings in a hell of a breath of fresh air at the same time as a ton of talent.
A largely autobiographical story, this _jeanne_ dark_ does not have anything very original at first sight. Marion Siefert has transposed her teenage experience into that of a young girl today, with whom the traditional problems of this period of transition are replayed. Lack of self-confidence, socialization difficulties and the first assaults of libido which we do not know what to do undermine her character, so well interpreted – we will come back to this – by Helena de Laurens. More precisely, Jeanne therefore suffers from having ‘a panicking mother who does not let her breathe, an absent father who always acts as the one who manages and a little sister who, one fine summer, goes from boloss to Belle Gosse and lives in the wake her first sexual experience. All in a Catholic environment in Orleans, between chaplaincy evenings and confessions with a nightmarish priest who does nothing to help him accept himself in this troubled period.
« I’m too stupid”, “I’m wasting my life”, “I have the profile of a parrot”. The least we can say is that this Jeanne doesn’t spare herself, doesn’t love herself, and doesn’t try to hide it. It is also during a live session on Instagram – a live video that she broadcasts on the social network from her room – that she unpacks her bag. And this is how the main character of the show, Jeanne’s laptop, enters the scene.
In Marion Siefert’s staging, it is indeed as if the theater spectator did not exist. The play is broadcast live on Instagram, and two large panels that frame the scene broadcast this live – comments from followers included – and quickly catch the eye. Long fluffy hair, place she says, and Helena de Laurens, who interprets Jeanne, keeps the phone in her hand the whole time, or fixed to a stand, or to a selfie stick, and plays with the close-ups to compose a a character that she makes ugly with a certain pleasure, with grimaces, close-ups and other unflattering low-angle shots that go up her nostrils. Started in realistic confession mode, the show also provides memorable musical escapes, ends in a choreography of great beauty, and goes through a hilarious metamorphosis into a bimbo warrior with Insta filters and an iron glove.
We will not say everything as there would be to say. Today’s language, social networks, contemporary narcissism and exhibited intimacy, porn, and the theater in all this, adolescence, Catholicism, burlesque, live commentary, the stage, smileys, the beauty, the violence and this final anger of the character which might deter many parents from ever saying anything to their children once more… The performance is long and we want it to never end, that of Helena de Laurens is all the more remarkable. The mind constantly jumps from one reflection to another as this form by its audacity and originality opens doors. If his medieval model heard voices, Marion Siefert’s show opens up many. The future is there, no doubt. Go see it near Aubervilliers and then on tour in France throughout the season.
Eric Demey – www.sceneweb.fr
_jeanne_dark_
Marion Siéfert
Concept, writing and direction
Marion Siéfert
artistic cooperation,
choreography and performance
Helena de Laurens
Artistic collaboration
Matthew BareyreDuration: 1h30
17 & 18.09.2020 The wind rose, SNLM Villeneuve d’Ascq – Preview
02 > 18.10.2020 The Commune CDN Aubervilliers
12.11.2020 l’Empreinte National scene Brive-Tulle
18 & 19.11.2020 TNG – Lyon
24 & 25.11.2020 Arles Theater
16 & 17.12.2020 Plural Spaces – Pau
05 > 07.01.2021 Sorano Theater – Toulouse
14 & 15.01.2021 TANDEM Douai-Arras
11 & 12.02.2021 CNDC – Angers
13.03.2021 The POC, Alfortville
18 > 26.03.2021 TNB – Rennes
30.03 & 01.04.2021 The Link – Strasbourg
08 > 12.04.2021 T2G – Gennevilliers
18 > 21.05.2021 Olympia Theater – Tours
26 > 28.05.2021 CDN d’Orléans
