Luca Giacomoni

« It all began on a day of violence. » Homer

Homer bequeathed us the two founding gestures of the Western imagination: a war and a journey. In a way, it is exactly what we do in the course of a lifetime: fighting to protect what is dear to us and overcoming a thousand obstacles in order to be able to say one day ‘this is my true homeland’. The opportunity to give stage form to this double movement arose when – in 2015, following the Charlie Hebdo attacks – the cultural director of the Meaux prison asked me to run a theater workshop on the roots of violence.

In a radical Islam prevention programme, I met men who embodied – in my eyes – the heroes and kings of Greek myth. The struggle for dignity and the wait for return suddenly took on a whole new dimension. Two years of work with a group of professional and non-professional actors, prisoners and ex-prisoners, gave birth to Iliad: a theatrical and human adventure that has since set a precedent in the French prison system.

ILIAD
Based on Homer’s Iliad and Homer, Iliad by Alessandro Baricco
Director Luca Giacomoni
Translation Paul Mazon, Françoise Brun
With Armelle Abibou, Mourad Ait Ouhmad, Samir Ben Malek, Hugues Dangreaux, Laurent Evuort Orlandi, Christopher Firmin, Cyril Guei, Jean-Baptiste Guinchard, Séphora Haymann, Peter Hudson, Brontis Jodorowsky, Sid Ali Hanifi, Lévy Kasse Sampah, Moussa Konate, Eliott Lerner, Ali Marsaoui, Louis Plesse, Bryan Polach, Michel Quidu, Jamal Yatim, Kamel Zada
Singing Sara Hamidi
Dramaturgy Marta Fallani
Assistant Director Giuseppina Comito
Lighting design Sean Seago

Production Why Theatre / With the support of the DRAC Île-de-France / With the support of the Ministry of Culture and Communication, Ministry of Justice, Arcadi Île-de-France, SPEDIDAM, Mains d’Œuvres, Les Plateaux Sauvages / Coproductions Centre pénitentiaire de Meaux Chauconin-Neufmontiers, SPIP Seine-et-Marne, DISP de Paris, Théâtre Paris-Villette / With the support of Humanités, Digital et Numérique Foundation and Meyer Foundation for Cultural and Artistic Development.

Duration / 10 episodes of 1h

« He who has been shipwrecked trembles even in the face of calm waters. » Ovid

In 2018, a filmmaker friend invited me to lead a theatre workshop at the Maison des Femmes in Saint-Denis, a support center for women in vulnerable situations or victims of violence. In order to familiarize myself with the space, I attended several support group sessions. The first one was about female genital mutilation. A delicate subject — delicate and violent, so violent that we prefer to imagine it far from us. That day, I listened to women speak about this mutilation, experienced by themselves and by so many others they had known.

In the group, people spoke of snakes born in the form of children; of women turned into goats, punished for their disobedience. Everyone in the circle nodded. These weren’t tales, nor allegories — they were reality. Most of these women had lived in a world where magic exists. Where transformation is a rational and sometimes necessary path. That session reminded me of Ovid and his Metamorphoses: the invisible lying in wait, transformation as the only possible horizon. Running through it all, the subjugation and domination of women’s bodies.

METAMORPHOSES
Based on The Metamorphoses by Ovid
Directed by Luca Giacomoni
Translation and dramaturgy Sarah Di Bella
With Diariatou Basse, Léna Dangreaux, Laëtitia Eïdo, Clémence Josseau, Hadassah Njengue, Sylvie Togba
Research and choice of music Eugenie De Mey
Singing Eugenie De Mey and Claire Trouilloud (alternating)
Assistant Director Giuseppina Comito
Costumes and objects Luca Giacomoni
Lighting design Bartolo Filippone

Production Why Theatre / In partnership with La Maison des Femmes de Saint-Denis / With the support of City of Paris, Meyer Foundation for Cultural and Artistic Development, Humanités, Digital et Numérique Foundation, L’Accompagnatrice Foundation, Les Ailes Foundation, Berger-Levrault Foundation, Adami and Spedidam / With the support of the integration programme of the École du Théâtre National de Bretagne / Creative residencies at Studio Théâtre (Stains), Gare au Théâtre (Vitry) and Théâtre de la Tempête (Paris).

Duration : 1h

When I start a new creation, I first of all look for the right soil: where do the soldier Woyzeck or the brothers Karamazov live today? Who can understand – not in an intellectual way, but through direct knowledge – the trajectory of Agamemnon or Ophelia? For Hamlet, I went to meet people who have had so-called ‘psychotic’ experiences: understanding of voices, hallucinations, perceptual disturbances, memory loss. As the invisible is the central theme of the play, I needed to bring together a team that was sensitive to this subject.

In Shakespeare’s work, there is a clear indication of the meaning of the theatrical act. Like therapy for the treatment of the phantom limb, illusion awakens memory – a formidable force acting on the present – and brings out the truth. So, in perfect baroque style, I chose to show the whole of the theatrical machinery: the lights, the walls, the costume changes, the training and the inevitable mistakes – as well as myself, the stage director, directing the actors in front of the audience. The artifice is on view, disturbing, in the strength of its reality.

HAMLET
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Luca Giacomoni
Translation Jean-Michel Déprats
Dramaturgy Sarah Di Bella
With Olivier Constant, Laure Darras, Valérie Dréville, Élodie Franques, Tarik Kariouh, Nathalie Morazin, Serge Nail, Vicente Olivier, Édouard Penaud, Fabrice Pesle, Louis Plesse, Quentin Vernede
Assistant directors Paola Pelagalli, Leïla Blier
In collaboration with Agnès Adam and Giuseppina Comito
Knife dance Davide Monaco
Costumes Cécile Laborda
Stage objects Jacopo Leone
Lighting design Bartolo Filippone

Production Why Theatre / In partnership with the GHU Paris Psychiatry and Neurosciences / Co-production by Monfort Théâtre (Paris) and Festival d’Automne à Paris / With the support of Île-de-France Region, City of Paris, DRAC Île-de-France, Meyer Foundation for Cultural and Artistic Development, Fondation de France, Humanités, Digital et Numérique Foundation, L’Accompagnatrice Foundation / With the participation of the Jeune Théâtre National (Paris) / Creative residencies at Nouveau Gare au Théâtre (Vitry-sur-Seine), at Monfort Théâtre (Paris), at Le Préau, CDN de Normandie-Vire, at La Villette (Paris), at Carreau du Temple (Paris), at T2G – Théâtre de Gennevilliers CDN, at Ménagerie de Verre (Paris)

Duration : 2h15

Inspired by a series of feminicides reported in the gazettes of the time, Woyzeck is a story of violence that resonates sadly with the chronicles of our time. An investigation into the nature of evil. Thanks to a collaboration with blind and partially-sighted people, we have turned it into a sound ballad in twenty-two fragments. Our Woyzeck is a play that can be seen with your eyes closed. Each spectator has the choice of watching the show come to life behind closed eyelids, or opening their eyes and witnessing the strange ritual behind the scenes.

The crunch of a soldier’s soles, the whisper of a voice in the wind, or the first raindrops of a thunderstorm – these are just some of the elements that set the scene for this long funeral oration with the air of a work song. It was in Afro-American music that we found the loneliness and stigmatisation of people on the margins of society; it was by working with voice-hearers that we were able to give substance to the invisible; and it was in boxing gyms that we sought out the male complicity that is both the foundation and the framework of the drama.

WOYZECK
Based on Woyzeck by Georg Büchner
Directed by Luca Giacomoni
Translation Jean-Louis Besson and Jean Jourdheuil
With Fé Avouglan, Ulysse Bosshard, Luc Brasseur, Nicolas Cambon, Giancarlo Corredor, Flavia Lorenzi, Wabinlé Nabié, Louis Plesse, Mathilde Ponsford
Song research Fé Avouglan
Trumpet Nicolas Cambon
Assistant directors Marie-Eve Dorléans and Kristina Strelkova
Introduction to puppetry Nancy Rusek
Boxing training Luc Brasseur and Fred Voubrel
Costumes and objects Luca Giacomoni
Lighting design Bartolo Filippone

Thanks to Murielle Hénon and Vincent Demassiet of REV France for their valuable insight into the phenomenon of “hearing voices”; to Jule Japhet for his guidance and advice on sound effects; and to Robine Anders for her in-depth analysis of the issue of femicide.

Production Why Theatre / Coproduction Ateliers Médicis (Clichy-sous-Bois and Montfermeil) and Nouveau Gare au Théâtre (Vitry-sur-Seine) / With the support of the City of Paris and the Ministry of Culture as part of the 2024 Cultural Olympiad, the Fondation d’entreprise La Poste, Fondation Jan Michalski, Fondation SNCF, Fondation Humanités, Digital et Numérique and Fondation Meyer pour le développement culturel et artistique / Creative residencies at Ateliers Médicis (Clichy-sous-Bois), Nouveau Gare au Théâtre (Vitry-sur-Seine) and Studio Philippe Genty (Paris).

Duration : 1h30

Ophelia is born from a desire that has accompanied me for years: to give body and voice, in another way, to a character too often overlooked. Ophelia passes through Hamlet like a shadow: objectified, silenced, abandoned in her madness. In this performance, she returns as a living presence – vulnerable and obstinate – in a language that is no longer that of words, but of dance, song, and dream. Carried by a proposal from curator Laura Lamonea and by the encounter with dancer Giulia Quacqueri, this vision was finally able to unfold.

The project was made possible through a collaboration with the association VIDAS, which supports people at the end of life, and through a work of inspiration around the dreamlike and unsettling universe of Francesca Woodman. This creation explores a threshold: that which separates and connects life and death. On stage, there is no story to follow, but a presence to listen to. Ophelia does not seek to explain or denounce: it is an invitation to inhabit the boundary of the visible, to let oneself be traversed by what remains at the margins. And to imagine, perhaps, another way of being in the world.

OPHELIA
Texts by William Shakespeare
Translation by Paolo Bertinetti
A performance by Luca Giacomoni
Curated by Laura Lamonea
With Giulia Quacqueri
Music by Daniela Pes
Dramaturgy Piera Mungiguerra
Puppet created by Ivan Terpigorev and Aimée Mattio

Produced by Video Sound Art for VIDAS
In co-production with the
Center for philosophical and theatrical research Hagia Sophia
Duration : 20 min
Photos © Luca Del Pia