“You can’t do theater with masks and gloves”

Both were to be on deck, or rather on the Avignon springboard, this summer. Two young theater companies, “emerging”, as they say at the Ministry of Culture, who played big with their passage to the Festival. The author and director Tiphaine Raffier, 34, with her company La Femme coupée en deux, was part of the “in” program, with Men’s Response, creation freely inspired by the “works of mercy” of the Gospel according to Matthew. Director Jules Audry, 29, with his company Future noir, was to play 11, one of the good halls of the “off”, his show Like a wave, according to The ill, by Antonio Alamo (Les Solitaires intempestifs, 2006), a text which depicts Stalin’s last evening in February 1953.

Tiphaine Raffier’s company feels like it’s facing “a house of cards whose elements are crumbling one after the other”.

Then fell the announcement of the cancellation, on April 13 for the “in”, on the 16th for the “off”. For the two troops, the impact will be ” huge “, say Tiphaine Raffier like Jules Audry. Even if the scale is not the same: the creation budget for Men’s Response is 650,000 euros, it’s ten times less important for Like a wave, at 65,000 euros.

As for La Femme cut in half, this spring and summer 2020 were to be those of a change of gear, from entering the big leagues. The company was to present two previous creations, In the name (2014) and France-Ghost (2018), at the Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe in late April, before launching Men’s Response, whose rehearsals were scheduled for June in Avignon. “It was the culmination of ten years of work, ensure Tiphaine Raffier and her administrator, Sabrina Fuchs. Even if we are probably not one of the companies whose existence is directly threatened, we accumulate problems. “

Like many others, the company feels like it is facing “A house of cards whose elements are collapsing one after the other. The exploitation of our two creations at the Odeon would normally lead to two years of tour, which allowed to mount the following productions and to support the company for two years, they explain. Another difficulty: how and where to repeat Men’s Response, in a context of progressive deconfinement? But we absolutely need to create this show, which must run throughout the next season ”.

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