An Egyptian sovereign takes up residence with the Sun King. Cleopatra, the Wolf Queen, is invited to the Grand Stable in Versailles, a few steps from the castle. This new play by Éric Bouvron is one of the creations featured at Mois Molière, a pre-summer theater and music festival which is celebrating its 29th edition. The director likes to take us for a walk: after the Afghan steppes (The Horsemen), Mongolia (Marco Polo and the Khan’s Swallow), Crete (Zorba), the African savannah (Poachers) or the Wadi Rum desert (Lawrence of Arabia), this time he takes us to the land of the pharaohs through the destiny of this figure as historical as it is mythical.
Sensitive “on the journey of women facing male stupidity”the father of two daughters, married three times, fell in love with this fighter propelled, barely 19 years old, to the head of a country and a dynasty, that of the Ptolemies. “Let’s imagine that she didn’t want this responsibility: what’s going on in the head of this young girl confronted with the exercise of power and who becomes pregnant by Caesar? Between reason and heart, this mother must defend her child but also her kingdom. The issues are very Shakespearean. »
On a stage without sets, eight actors accompanied by three singers and musicians play the sixty roles, including animals, in this intimate and political epic. “When I write, I don’t think about the direction. I never censor myself just because we are performing on stage, explains Éric Buvron. If the story takes us to Egypt, the desert or anywhere else, I don’t limit myself. Like kids in a sandbox, it’s up to us to invent a way to make it real. »
The figure of the Egyptian queen has been lurking in the imagination of Éric Bouvron for a long time, nourished by the story of his own mother. Like Cleopatra, the latter lived in Egypt. Like her, she is of Greek origin. Like her, she became a mother at 20. Like her, she found herself in a hostile country, with a child in her arms. “We were between a Ken Loach film and a peplum”he laughs.
“I can perform anywhere on the planet”
It was also she, a travel agent, who transmitted to him the virus of distant destinations, the motif of his pieces and vice versa. One constantly feeds the other. “When I leave, I need to feel that roots are growing within me. My first project, at the national theater in South Africa, focused on saving turtles. The director took us to watch their births on the coast, and we wrote and rehearsed the play on the beaches. I understood that theater is life, it is nature. I can perform anywhere on the planet. »
The road began for him in Egypt but he was only one year old when his parents left the country in 1967, because of the war. After a brief stay in his father’s homeland, France, which did not go well, the family immigrated to South Africa where an uncle, on his mother’s side, made his fortune.
The desire for elsewhere
This is where he spent a privileged childhood, between theater and dance classes, where he was the only boy, rugby fields and water polo pools. His vocation was born at 6 years old after a poem about pears recited during an end-of-year show. At the age of 20, he cut his teeth at the national theater in Durban. “I was seen as the new prodigy. I danced on one side, I clowned on the other, we created shows in the townships… I had carte blanche. »
The desire to see what was happening elsewhere brought him to Paris where he started from scratch. He enrolled at the Jacques-Lecoq school, also spent a month with Ariane Mnouchkine, joined a dance company, and began to make a name for himself with comedy shows.
However, times are tough. In the evening, he works at McDonald’s and stays at the Cité universitaire. His best friends are the cockroaches who even inspire him with little texts. “South Africa taught me one thing: to have hope. But at one point, I was almost out of credit. » A few nice encounters will fortunately give destiny a helping hand. Journeys can take side roads, but Éric Bouvron has arrived safely.
He continues to multiply projects, including one devoted to the First World War in Saudi Arabia, the adaptation of a Haitian author or the creation in Barcelona of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by a Reunion theater troupe. “The planet is in my head. I sometimes tell myself that I need to slow down a bit. But hey, when you lift one foot, the other presses even harder! »
Cleopatra, the Wolf Queen at the Grande Écurie in Versailles, June 14 and 15, then at the “off” Festival in Avignon, from July 5 to 26. 1:55 a.m. lespassionnesdureve.com
