Piece by Christiane Véricel

Foreignness in one’s own country. Children between grown-ups and their stress, between everyday life and expulsion. Children with their feet on the ground, still light-hearted and innocently ignorant, but already sensing freedom.

Playfully and seriously, boisterously and dreamily, people pack their suitcases and boxes. That they are getting ready for the trip from Lorient (in Brittany) to Pondichéry (in India) is scenic action as well as metaphor. A thrilling spectacle, to which the children lend a very special touch with their effervescent humour, their tenderness, and their carefreeness.

Although France is a country with a substantial portion of foreigners, the French – and here they are quite comparable to Germans – like to circulate among themselves. Not so Christiane Véricel, who grounded the Compagnie Image Aiguë (in English, roughly, sharp picture) in 1983. Around a core of approximately twelve artists she groups children and adults of different nationalities who live in France or abroad and who always speak their native tongue on stage.

Guest performances led the Compagnie to countless French cities, to many European countries, as well as to New York, Casablanca, Japan, Australia, India, Thailand, and Brazil.

An attempt at having different nations live together in the most lively and exciting way. A lived utopia of the multicultural society, of the Tower of Babel before the linguistic confusion. »Doubtlessly the dream of forming actors from a great international house, or perhaps from nomads, that theater can be a messenger of peace…« (Christiane Véricel).