From Yvelines… to the Avignon Festival!
His name is associated with the renewal of the Festival Off d’Avignon, this summer, from July 7 to 30. Nothing surprising in that: Laurent Rochut has three theaters (Théatre de l’Oulle, Chapelle des Antonins, Salle Tomasi, i.e. about twenty shows) brought together under the concept of La Factory.
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With the editorial line of attracting all audiences through popular, innovative creations and listening to all audacity. Leader, author, writer, ex-teacher, Laurent Rochut owes a lot of his cultural legitimacy to the Yvelines where he lived experiences that forged his personality and his desire to create.
It’s not so far the time when you rode Tom Thumb at Versailles. Is this where it all started?
At the time, I had experience as a school teacher and I discovered Commedia dell’arte. This occupied me for fifteen years, alongside the creator, Italian playwright Carlo Boso, master of Commedia dell’ Arte with international renown. I participated in various adventures by participating in productions, but also by setting up my own company. I experienced Molière’s creation of the month… In short, Versailles and the Yvelines are somewhat the cornerstone of a theater that goes back to the sources of Jean Vilar. That is to say a popular theater that tells stories by projecting itself towards audiences that are not used to receiving a show.
Alya theatre, the other collective…
Variety of registers, texts in keeping with our time and diversification of audiences are the challenges of La Factory. Archives.
What do you remember from your time in Yvelin?
When I discovered the theater at Versailles, I was in the mindset of a writer. I took myself for Montherlant. When I discovered Commedia dell’arte, I was faced with a theater that was neither intellectual nor based on psychology. I apprehended it as a huge makeover. I originally thought that the theater was an intellectual affair, I realized that it was above all the affair of craftsmen. That the physical play of Comedia was understandable without words, with universal body language. This physical game, these animal stakes of the dramaturgy passed, immediately. It was a wonder.
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“On a played Tom Thumb among the men of the GIGN, at the Satory barracks”
And the Yvelinois Carlo Boso marked you.
His company is my theatrical cornerstone, an infinite well of science of comedic situations. He is able to make a room laugh only with a physical game, without the slightest word. It is prodigious! This is a repertoire of comic stories from several centuries. We must not forget, either, that the Commedia dell’arte was the first theatrical genre in which women acted. It was from the 15th century a weapon used by anarchists to speak to the people.
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Is it true that you played Tom Thumb of Charles Perrault in front of soldiers?
I had proposed a total rehabilitation of the famous story. We performed among the men of the GIGN, at the Satory barracks. We were provided with trestles. The funny thing is that my cousin, a member of the GIGN, was in the barracks. There were also gendarmes, policemen… The public was very heterogeneous.
Does this correspond to your philosophy: to reach the widest audience?
The Yvelines and Avignon, the link is there. The professionals have a real big job to do on welcoming the public and renewing the generations. It is for this reason that it is necessary to target a program with contemporary texts which speak about subject of society and touch the young people, the 20-35 years. It is also valid for less socially privileged audiences who think that the theater is not for them.
“I like the fraternal side of the theater through its company. The idea of forming a group is attractive, even when there are difficulties. We transcend things. Louis Jouvet said: “The theater is self-forgetfulness for self-advancement. This is the key to theatre.
“We have to seek out these audiences so that they become mediators of living art.”
Hence the interest of your School of Spectators.
We will start this system this year which consists in particular in offering places in the context of a raffle on the theme of “The culture of the heart”. We found the formula for sponsorship, in particular a retailer. The idea is that it is no longer companies that offer places. Their role will be more in cultural mediation by meeting the public before and after the performances. To continue this conversation. This process will also continue throughout the year with the social centres. We have to seek out these audiences so that they become mediators of living art.
Theater for all?
We are here to show that this is not a story of “knowledgeable people”.
This “theater business plan”, did you already have it in the Yvelines, at the time of Petit Poucet?
I started very early to do theater then I accompanied it by the creation of a press group, Dona Presse, intended for parents (kid side, I am pregnant and I am mom). It’s true that when I landed in Avignon, I arrived with this Yvelin culture and the desire to shake things up. So that the theaters operate all year round, with the prospect that Avignon becomes a theater like the Victorine studio in Nice is a cinema. That is to say a place of residences, production boxes…
Chartres: the Cavalcade company leaves for the Avignon festival
Quite a symbol, the year in which we celebrate Molière’s 400th birthday!
For me, the priority is to combine the requirements of public theater and quality private theatre. We must get out of this dichotomy which dates from another time. Above all, all the theaters must be reconciled. Public and private, each theater must learn from the other. All this is done to give birth to “beautiful mixed-race children”.
Will you receive companies from Yvelines this summer?
This territory has many structures. Multiple creations are born in Versailles, in particular around the pole of Carlo Boso, and in other cities of the surroundings. Otherwise, the Comédiens et compagnie troupe goes down to Avignon; she plays The madwoman of Chaillot at the Oulle theatre. I have a special connection with this company. I was the first buyer of their first show when I was still teaching in Fontenay-sous-Bois as part of a theater festival. They had played their first play, The Princess of Elis, by Moliere. The circle is complete !
La Factory, in Avignon: Théâtre de l’Oulle; Tomasi Room and Antonin Chapel. Information: Tel. 09.74.74.64.90. https://la-factory.org/
Olivier Bohin