The newly elected President, François Mitterrand, put an end to the State monopoly of broadcasting established at the Liberation. Since his election, pirate radios had proliferated, so much so that one year later nearly 2,000 free radios were listed. Through the revolution of the airwaves, the author and director David Lescot portrays the state of the nation in the early 1980s, the first three years of the left in power in France until the country veered into a period of austerity: “Using the stage to show a free radio, its clandestine creation, its forbidden and subsequently legal existence, its transformation. How the history of France in this period and the destiny of the radio are superimposed, how one can talk about one through the other. Telling the story of this utopian, fantasised period is also a way of looking at ourselves from a certain distance.” After adapting Karl Kraus’ The_Last Days of Mankind_ in 2016 at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier, David Lescot returns to work with the Troupe on a text specially written for it, to decrypt an era, that of his youth, “in the manner of an aesthetic manifesto in which art and life are inextricably intertwined”, he states. At a time when the Internet has become a new emblem, what remains of our utopias and this great liberation of the airwaves?

Le texte de la pièce est à paraître aux éditions Actes Sud-Papiers le 23 mai 2018
En collaboration avec la Compagnie du Kaïros

Vous pouvez retrouver dans le théâtre permanent la note d'intention de David Lescot et découvrir la playlist des années 80 pensée par l’équipe artistique.

Mardi 12 juin à l’issue de la représentation :
Rencontre avec le public
en présence de David Lescot, auteur et metteur en scène ; Anaïs Kien, conseillère historique ; et des membres de l’équipe du spectacle.
Entrée libre à 21h.

The history of the Comédie-Française in the period 1981-1984 is symptomatic of the change in society that took place at that time. In 1983, at the end of Jacques Toja’s mandate, François Mitterrand appointed Jean-Pierre Vincent as general administrator of the Comédie-Française, on the proposal of his minister of culture Jack Lang.

Vincent brought a breath of fresh air: he was the first general administrator to also be a director, and the first artist to emerge from the policy of decentralisation to be appointed to this post. He sparked a frenzy of ideas and reflections, for which the_Revue de la Comédie-Française_ became the outlet, along with ambitious projects and collaborations with great artists, however he preferred not to renew for a second term.

David Lescot’s project is set at this historic moment, during the first three years of François Mitterrand’s presidency, capturing the state of mind of an era by telling the story of the creation of an ephemeral medium, independent radio.

Staging: David Lescot
Scenography: Alwyne de Dardel
Costumes: Mariane Delayre
Lights: Paul Beaureilles
Original music : Anthony Capelli and David Lescot
Sounds: Anthony Capelli
Make-up and wigs**:** Catherine Bloquère
Artistic collaboration: Linda Blanchet
Historical advice: Anaïs Kien
Assistant scenography: Gala Ognibene