an intimate dive into the darkness of absence
Everything always begins with a love story (a soliloquy around a disappearance) is a poignant single-scene that explores absence.
Everything always starts with a love story, and then sometimes, at 7 years old, we find ourselves abandoned by a father. And then emptiness and lack come to replace love. He still lives in the house with the red shutters, but without her. So you have to learn to do with, or rather without; succeed in not completely disappearing into this marshy void and in taming the anger that has hastened to make its nest.
Digital, musical and scenic writings intertwine in this fragmented narrative which tells us both the construction of a love and that of a lack; who explore the absence and the different forms it can take over time. Despite a construction that may seem a bit confusingthis beautifully interpreted piece-puzzle does not leave anyone indifferent.
“Why is it so hard to say ‘I’? Why is it so difficult to let oneself be looked at, to let oneself be seen, without trying anything other than to be oneself? Why is it so hard to exist?’
Attempt to approve the absence
The young woman evokes memories, wonders, questions us and installs from the first moments a close relationship with the public, automatically making the fourth wall disappear. She welcomes us and leads us into this story in which we too will play several roles : that of family member, confidant, witness.
And don’t be fooled the apparent lightness of the first momentsthis is only a way of approaching on tiptoe what rumbles and threatens within, so difficult to console, to digest. She enters it little by little, through the titles of the chapters, family photos, excerpts from her children’s letters, or other projected personal archives on sliding screens. Just like this definition of the word “disappear” which keeps coming back.
From simmering to boiling
Mrs. R. clings to the story of her story, to its smallest details. She go back in time and put the pieces of the puzzle together who led – not without difficulty – the little girl to her life as a woman, crossing ages and roles who marked out this construction. With the face of a sulky child and a dress of a little princess just put on by the arms, she recounts her 7 years, the birth of her sisters, the sudden feeling of no longer having a place, the fear of disturbing…
And then, as she talks to us about the one she designates as “the man who gave birth to her” to keep him sufficiently at a distance, this muffled anger that was screaming inside finally bursts out. Anger at the absence of a father, the mourning of a living impossible to do, the lack. The artificial paradises then become a refuge while black engulfs everything.
The words, then, overflow as produced by the lava of a volcano that has remained extinct for too long. And what at first sounds like a confidence gradually takes the form ofan interminable complaint, of a long bewilderment.
A little too sophisticated construction
The form of this show is a bit confusing and complex to understand At first glance. Indeed, this Mademoiselle R. who stands in front of us, without artifice, is by turns author, actress and character in history intimate in which it immerses us. And if we quickly understand that it is one and the same person, scattered, we wonder if this somewhat confused construction was really necessary for the purpose.
Especially since the sensitive interpretation of Anna Bouguereau enough to give this spectacle all the power that one sends quivering to its source. Indeed, the actress that we discovered in 2019 in her only-on-stage Joy – which had earned us a huge crush – is disturbingly sincere. This is moreover why Everything always starts with a love story part hopes of our selection for this new edition of the Festival OFF.
One more time, she hypnotizes us with her presencesimple and authentic, with his gaze that seems to read deep into the soul, and these words of Pauline Ribat of which she takes marvelous care. So that despite all the pain and violence of this story, sweetness and hope do not cease for a moment to make their way there.
It all always starts with a love story (a soliloquy around a disappearance), written and directed by Pauline Ribat, with Anna Bouguereau, is played from July 7 to 29, at 6:50 p.m., at 11. Avignon (break on Tuesday).
Find all our articles guaranteed at the Festival Off d’Avignon here.
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An intimate and powerful story
However, this story is so intimate and personal that we missed being able to project ourselves more into it, identify with it, connect something from our history to it and access more concretely the universal emotions that it