Two Productions Supported by FACE at the Avignon Festival

• Welfare – Julie Deliquet (Based on the film by Frederick Wiseman, 1973)

France / Creation at the Festival d’Avignon 2023
July 5 – 14 (in French with English titles)

“I like to watch people, I like to think about everything I see:” These words by film-maker Frederick Wiseman’s are at the heart of this adaptation of Welfare (1973) by Julie Deliquet. A unique day in the life of the homeless, stateless, workers, single mothers and other destitute people who file into the makeshift welfare centre set up in the Cour d’honneur. For the duration of the performance, the Palais des papes becomes a place of hospitality struggling to take on a human face. This is the territory inhabited by the characters of this adaptation by the current director of the Centre dramatique national de Saint-Denis, whose theatre ceaselessly tries to capture life within the human comedy. Fifteen everyday heroes whose stories intertwine to show in stark relief the dysfunctions of our society. Characters who invite us to follow them and to step through the fourth wall the way one must see through a fantasy to find reality again.

• Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge – Elevator Repair Service (ERS)

United States / Creation 2021
July 7 – 11 (in English with French titles)

Is the American Dream at the expense of the American Negro? This question was posed to the writer James Baldwin and to conservative thinker William F. Buckley Jr. in 1965. Surrounded by students at the University of Cambridge, the two men debated, their arguments recorded for posterity. Inspired by the contemporary resonances of their arguments, John Collins and Greig Sargeant of the New York company Elevator Repair Service immerse us in the historical debate. A narrow room, a pulpit, an audience within arm’s reach… To be at the heart of the debate, struck and carried away by strong convictions and timeless ideas. The arguments used couldn’t be more timely, leading us to think about relationships of discrimination, but we also watch James Baldwin and slowly get to know the private side of this public figure. Past and present collide. The power of words prevail.