L'Ascension d'Arturo
Ui.

Imagine Brecht in 1941, writing this play very quickly — in flight after the Reichstag fire, exiled in Finland, in transit to the United States. He invents a language and a narrative, in tableaux and chronicles reminiscent of a Shakespearean drama crossed with new gangster films, following the rise of a petty, vile buffoon — a cauliflower magnate who corrupts, kills, lies, traffics and crushes everything in his path, moving episode by episode from small-time crook to dictator. The audience laughs a great deal — which helps understand what goes unsaid. Arturo Ui is somewhat Hitler, or perhaps the reverse. Cantarella proposes a new version freely translated by poet Stéphane Bouquet. Runtime: approximately 2h30. Post-show meeting on 21 January. Audiodescription-accessible performance on 22 January. Création/coproduction.