Pièce "The Gate of the Year" par Gareth Russel

Pimprenelle avait annoncé cette production il y a longtemps déjà.

https://maria-antonia.forumactif.com/t20p285-marie-antoinette-en-pieces-de-theatre

pimprenelle a écrit:

Une pièce qui remet l'histoire de nos souverains et ses démêlés dans le contexte actuel. Intéressante démarche.

SUNDAY, 2 MARCH 2014
"The Gate of the Year"




This week, my newest play The Gate of the Year is premiering in the Belvoir Players' Studio in south Belfast. The Gate of the Year imagines the events of the French Revolution from a few months before the famous attack on the Bastille fortress until a few days before the fall of the palace in October, as if they had taken place in the modern-day. It focuses on the high court nobility, led by the King's youngest brother the Duke of Artois (played by Belfast actor David Paulin) and his friend, the elegant but manipulative Duchesse de Polignac (played by Rebecca Lenaghan), as they struggle against the growing forces of the revolution. It also contains the storyline of the notorious journalist Jean-Paul Marat (Conor Doran) and the young idealistic republican Charlotte Corday (Nuala Davies).

One of the joys of writing The Gate of the Year after writing the story of the actual events of the French Revolution, The Audacity of Ideas, a few years ago, is to re-imagine the events and personalities to fit with a more modern setting. Marie-Antoinette, played here by the wonderful Emma Taylor who played Imogen in both stage versions of Popular, was seen by many as the inventor of what later came to be called haute couture, by public fascination with her soon turned ugly and in this alternate reality, she becomes the victim of invasive and crushing media attention. Trying to keep the ghosts of Grace Kelly and Princess Diana at bay was tricky, but luckily Marie-Antoinette's own involvement, last-minute, in the politics of the French monarchy meant her story took on a very different hue regardless of her modern-day similarities.

History, I think, has eternal themes and balancing those with the characters of those who lived and died in the 1790s has been a hugely rewarding experience and one of the highlights of any challenge I have faced as a writer thus far. In this world, The Marriage of Figaro controversy becomes about the same-sex marriage debate and Marie-Antoinette complains of the paparazzi, but words like "recession" and "hunger strikers", words that have such an immediate emotional impact on people today, particularly in Northern Ireland, slotted right into the story with surprising ease.


From left-to-right. In rehearsal for The Gate of the Year, Emma Taylor as Queen Marie-Antoinette, David Paulin as the Duke of Artois and Tom Flight as Louis XVI.

The French Revolution casts a long shadow over the two centuries that came after it and perhaps the most surprising thing is not how much needed to be changed but how much could remain the same. The events of The Gate of the Year are very different to the chronology of what happened in 1789 - with modern technology, it was impossible to have Louis XVI (Tom Flight) and Marie-Antoinette's eldest son die of tuberculosis as he did in 1789, here, they are the parents of four surviving children - but at the end of it all, I can't help but think that the feeling of what that euphoric and horrific summer must have been like for the people living through it has remained the same.

The Gate of the Year is open to the public at the Belvoir Players' Studio Theatre in Belfast on Friday 7th March at 8 p.m. and Saturday 8th March at 8 p.m. An industry performance is taking place on Thursday For more information, you can visit the theatre's booking page here. And all media enquiries can contact garethrussell6@gmail.com.
http://garethrussellcidevant.blogspot.be/2014/03/the-gate-of-year.html

Entre-temps, il y a eu les auditions et les répétitions.
http://garethrussellcidevant.blogspot.be/2013/12/auditions-for-gate-of-year.html

La pièce a été jouée avec succès à Belfast. Voici le Roi Louis XVI et la Reine Marie-Antoinette.


http://eile.ie/2014/03/07/preview-the-gate-of-the-year-belvoir-players-theatre-belfast/


https://www.facebook.com/events/426903000776301/?ref=22

Comme le montre la noblesse des attitudes et des personnages, le Roi Louis XVI est loin de la caricature trop souvent présentée sur les écrans et sur les planches.

Grappling with personal and moral ambiguities is what makes this story so appealing to me as a writer and Tom Flight, who returns to the role of France's doomed King Louis XVI articulates this well when reflecting on his character's dire reputation as a failed monarch who helped grease the slippery slope to chaos. "I think the reason why he is often thought of as weak and pathetic is because Louis suffered from incredible self-doubt in his ability to rule which lead to uncertainty in decision making. This makes Louis easy to mock as it goes against the traditional ideas of a strong monarch. But in The Gate of the Year, you see the complexity of the decisions that Louis faced and how he was caught between the deep-seated traditions of the Aristocracy and the blazing rage of the revolutionaries. One of my favourite lines in the play is when Marie-Antoinette says of Louis “He chose being kind over being good.” Louis tried until the end to do the right thing, but the consequences of his decisions were horrific. I actually believe Louis was a better King than most. But," he concedes, "he was perhaps the wrong monarch at the wrong time."

Both Stephanie and Tom interpreted the marriage of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette much more favourably than most portrayals of them. Marie-Antoinette has been played on screen by actresses like Norma Shearer (who was nominated for an Oscar for the role in 1938), Jane Seymour, Joely Richardson, Kirsten Dunst and Diane Kruger, but in many, particularly in the 1938 role, Louis is played as a kind-hearted dunce, almost a caricature. Stephanie sees Marie-Antoinette as "unquestionably faithful" to her husband (rumours dogged the Queen, then and later, that she had an affair with the handsome Swedish soldier, Count Axel von Fersen, but I agree with writers like Jonathan Beckman and Elena Maria Vidal that there is no evidence to support that she was ever unfaithful to her husband). Of their marriage, Tom, who read the historian Vincent Cronin's account of the royal marriage, reflects, "I believe they loved each other unquestionably. Through being forced into a politically motivated arranged marriage a unique bond between them was formed. Louis also never had mistresses (unlike many of his predecessors) and his faithfulness shows a commitment and devotion to the marriage that was rare in Versailles. I believe their marriage was a happy and loving one, and Stephanie Dale’s wonderful performance as Marie-Antoinette sublimely captures the shock and torment as the fairy-tale turns into a nightmare."

La Reine Marie-Antoinette est elle aussi montrée avec beaucoup de dignité. La voici avec Mme de Polignac.



Stephanie Dale, who plays Marie-Antoinette, and who has recently finished filming for the BBC series The Sparticle Mystery, reflects, "I am sympathetic towards her because of what she has had to endure emotionally. Growing up, her life was supposed to have been perfect and she had a terrible time with the press. One of my favourite lines is 'it was not a complete pleasure to live out the greatest fairy tale of the century.' Marie Antoinette has been hurt by publicity and she knew what people expected of her and her marriage, but she is also extremely strong for having the ability to endure it. The amount she takes on emotionally and physically in the course of this play is quite extensive and for this reason I admire her." As Marie-Antoinette hurtles towards a fate she would never have chosen for herself there is, to me anyway, something magnificent about the way she decides "not to go quietly into the night." In Stephanie's words, "She has chosen her destiny and chosen to take action which is an extremely admirable part of her personality."

D'autres grandes figures de la Révolution sont mises à l'honneur, comme Marat et Charlotte Corday.
http://garethrussellcidevant.blogspot.be/2014/12/the-ghosts-of-versailles.html

madame antoine