Le Bonheur

Theater is never as great as when it draws from the sources of reality, from the document. Since 2005, this has been the dramatic springboard for the performances of director Tatiana Frolova, a leading figure in the KnAM Theatre. In the heart of the industrial city of Komsomolsk-sur-l’Amour, in the far East of Russia, the KnAM Theatre is an island of resistance, almost utopian, where the wind of freedom blows and whose very existence, for more than thirty years, has been a matter of survival.

Like a ceremony, Le Bonheur opens with voices from elsewhere, shadows that slip behind plastic curtains, projected testimonials that interact with the actors on stage. They share their present, the difficulties of their existence. In an era where everything seems to be falling apart, Tatjana Frolova deciphers historical facts and uses the testimonies of her compatriots, collected by her camera.

What is the most valuable and desirable thing for us as a nation today, when socialism and the ideas of ”brotherhood-equality-freedom” are thrown into the dustbin of history and replaced by the religion of ”comfort-stability-security”? It seems that the Russians have abandoned this precious thing, happiness.

Tatiana Frolova explores, as far as possible, this question of happiness, with her eyes wide open on her country, aspiring to a new world, tending towards harmony, more equal. The piece deploys a wide spectrum of possibilities. It abounds in current and past images – photos, videos, archives – and makes a multitude of points of view heard. It risks shifting games, less in search of virtuosity than of a trembling of the senses.

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