Genre / Country	Theatre / CANADA, FRANCE
Dates	7 May at 15:00, 8 May at 13:00
Venue	At Shizuoka Arts Theatre (Reserved seat)
Duration	120 minutes
Language	In French with Japanese subtitles
Text, Direction and Performance	Wajdi MOUAWAD

Introduction

MOUAWAD’s talent vividly explodes with this play that depicts a person facing increasing isolation.

Wajdi MOUAWAD is a Lebanese-Canadian playwright renowned for his masterful tetralogy “Blood Promises” whose final piece, “Skies,” was published in 2009.
A year before that, however, saw the premiere of monodrama “Seuls” that is widely regarded as marking a major turning point in his writing.
In “Seuls,” the hero, named Harwan, faces a deadline to submit his doctoral thesis and is gradually becoming more depressed and losing control of his life. Then, after cutting himself off from his loving family, he is chased further into a corner when his thesis supervisor brings forward the deadline.
From this bleak scenario, MOUAWAD’s stunning talent fashions an entirely enjoyable, absorbing play whose totally unexpected developments and twists in the tail together present a fabulous description of youth’s travails.

Synopsis

The hero Harwan is dealing with the difficult problem of writing his master’s thesis on (Canadian dramatist) Robert LEPAGE. His family has always taken care of Harwan, but he has had a quarrel with his father on the phone. That happened because his father referred to his war experience in Lebanon (from where his family gained asylum in Canada), and Harwan thought it was unfair of him to bring that into their argument.
After Harwan’s supervisor presses him on the deadline for his thesis, he is preparing a trip to Russia to meet LEPAGE when he hears his father’s health has broken down — meaning that if he doesn’t recover, their last words together would be “bastard.”
From Harwan’s life having seemingly looked perfect, where will it go now?

Director’s Profile

Wajdi MOUAWAD
Born in 1968 in Beirut, MOUAWAD was just 8 years old when the civil war raging in Lebanon led his family to seek asylum in France before finally settling in Montreal, the largest city in Canada’s French-speaking province of Quebec, in 1983.
In 2000, after studying drama at the city’s elite National Theatre School of Canada, “Littoral” (aka “Tideline”) — the first play in what would become his internationally lauded “Blood Promises” tetralogy — won the Governor General’s Award in Literature (for drama).
In 2007, MOUAWAD was appointed Artistic Director of the National Arts Centre’s French Theatre in the Canadian capital of Ottawa — a position occupied from 1989–93 by Quebec City-raised theatre icon Robert Lepage.
Two years later, he received the Grand Prix of the Academie Francaise in drama, and also became 2009’s Associate Artist of the Avignon Festival, where he staged the first three parts of his tetralogy that year.
In Japan, “Littoral” had its national premiere at SPAC in 2010, then in 2014 the New National Theatre in Tokyo staged his 2003 play “Incendies” (aka “Scorched”) in well-received performances directed by the fast-rising KAMIMURA Satoshi.
Now based in France and Quebec, MOUAWAD has written a novel titled “Anma” and is active in theatre as a writer and director, having followed “Seuls” with “Sisters” (2014) and the shortly upcoming “Brothers, Father and Mother.” In recent years, he has also been working on the seven tragedies of Sophocles in a project titled “Last Day of his Life.”

Talks

◎Starting 25 minutes before each performance, there will be a pre-performance talk.

Cast / Staff

Written, directed and performed by Wajdi MOUAWAD
Dramaturgy and thesis writing: Charlotte FARCET
Artistic advisor: François ISMERT
Assistant director: Irène AFKER
Scenography: Emmanuel CLOLUS
Lighting designer: Eric CHAMPOUX
Costume: Isabelle LARIVIÈRE
Sound designer: Michel MAURER
Original music: Michael Jon FINK
Video production: Dominique DAVIET
Artistic assistant: Alain ROY
Stage: Eric MOREL
Sound: Olivier RENET
Lighting: Eric Le BREC’H
Video: Olivier PETITGAS
Production and Touring Director: Maryse BEAUCHESNE

Production: Au Carré de l’Hypoténuse – France
　　　　　　Abé Carré Cé Carré – Québec
Co-production: La Colline théâtre national
　　　　　　　 le manege.mons
　　　　　　　 l’Espace Malraux scène nationale de Chambéry et de la Savoie
　　　　　　　 le Grand T théâtre de Loire –Atlantique
　　　　　　　 le Théâtre 71 scène nationale de Malakoff
　　　　　　　 la Comédie de Clermont-Ferrand scène nationale
　　　　　　　 le Théâtre National de Toulouse Midi –Pyrénées
　　　　　　　 le Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui, Montréal

Cooperation: Délégation générale du Québec à Tokyo Quebec
Supported by Embassy of Canada and Embassy of Lebanon

SPAC Staff
Stage manager: UCHINO Akiko
Stage: FURUYA Kazumi
Lighting: HIGUCHI Masayuki
Sound: YAMAZAKI Tomomi, SHIMIZU Kei, SAWADA Yukino
Wardrobe: OOKA Mai, TAKAHASHI Kayako
Interpreter: ISHIKAWA Hiromi
Japanese subtitles (Translation): FUJII Shintaro
Japanese subtitles (Operation): ASAMA Teppei
Production: HAYASHI Yuka, SAKAMOTO Ayako, TSURUNO Takako
Volunteer: YU Xuemei

Technical manager: MURAMATSU Atsushi
Lighting manager: HIGUCHI Masayuki
Sound manager: KATO Hisanao

Supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan in the fiscal 2016

World Theatre Festival Shizuoka 2016