Après la répétition / Persona • Ingmar Bergman Ivo van Hove • Théâtre National

This is the second time that Ivo van Hove is bringing together Après la répétition and Persona. After a Dutch-language production that already revealed the contrasts and similarities between these two typically Bergmanian plays, he returns to them in French with a leading cast. Emmanuelle Bercot, Charles Berling, Justine Bachelet and Mama Prassinos will firmly commit their bodies as they take to the stage in this two-part production.

Two visions of theatre (and art) collide. Après la répétition tells the story of a man who can’t tear himself away from the rehearsal room, a man for whom the theatre is quite simply synonymous with life. Persona, on the other hand, is about an actress who has lost her footing in life, having sacrificed too much to the theatre.

He talks a lot. She says almost nothing. Ivo van Hove’s staging carefully explores the nuances of the relationship between self and art, orchestrating the clash between dialogue-based and performance-based theatre. A powerful text and eloquent bodies make up a diptych in which finely articulated words precede and combine with robust physicality.

Coproduction Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles