« 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