L'Éveil du printemps

Like the other great plays of the author of Lulu, this one still resists all attempts of classification. The author himself referred to it as a “childish tragedy”, the life of these adolescents struggling with their nascent sexuality, confronted with the morality of a hostile adult and institutional world. In 1906, Prussian society saw it as a “pornographic” work, which it censored, before Wedekind came to be recognised, in Brecht’s words, as “one of the great educators of modern Europe”. Freud analysed him from a psychoanalytical point of view, followed by Lacan. The author, who has become emblematic of German expressionist theatre, for his part favours a form of “sunny innocence”.
After dealing with the question of desire and social conventions through Molière’s Misanthrope and then Marivaux’s Le Petit-Maître corrigé, Clément Hervieu-Léger continues to progress through the centuries, while the protagonists have rejuvenated and embody an entire generation. He has put together a team that, among others, includes Richard Peduzzi, the great master of scenography whom he met while working on Patrice Chéreau productions. Sensitive to these carnal awakenings, when nature suddenly erupts, they have focused on the “climates” peculiar to that age when life is unknown and forbidden, a space of play and fantasy.