| Performers | Sonia 'SonYa' Bel Hadj Brahim, Ofelie Crispin, Samuel Dutertre, Herve LassTnce, Thi Mai Nguyen, James Thierree |
| Scenography and original music | James Thierree |
| Technical coordination | Anthony Nicolas |
| Sound | Thomas Delot |
| Costumes | Pascaline Chavanne |
| Bestiary | Victoria Thierree |
| Stage managers | Samuel Dutertre, Lorenzo Graouer, Anthony Nicola |
| Wardrobe and stage manager Scenography | Emilie Revel |
| Assistants to the director | Penelope Biessy, Sidonie Pigeon |
| Assistants to the Scenographer | Laura Leonard |
| Construction, manufacturing, props | Thomas Delot, Samuel Dutertre, Fabrice Henches, Anthony Nicolas, Sabine Schlemmer, Monika Schwarzl, Matthieu Bony, Olvido Lanza Bermejo, Simon Zaoui, Patrick Lebreton, Camille Joste |
| Peintures et patines | Marie Rossetti |
| Production and coordination | Emmanuelletaccard, Stephanie Liodenot |
(12+)
12+
THE TOAD KNEW. Why? I have no idea. Neither the years that have passed, nor this stage that keeps joyously and relentlessly chasing me give an answer to the question of why we are doing this or that on this drunken ship called THEA... (I guess this word needs a little rest). Why are we hanging the wires to the left and not to the right? Why is my body functioning against the laws of nature? Why none of the things that have been foreseen are actually translated into reality? Huh? And not at least, why do we imagine a story and get down to making it happen? I have absolutely no idea.
In this show the big secrets are necessarily eaten up by the small ones. This is undeniably obvious. We shall little by little reveal the underworld that has out of excessive curiosity about man put itself in his hands and was betrayed by him and in the meantime his heart was broken.
I am engaged in Theatre precisely because all I want is not to explain what is inside, but just to take a walk around. Let’s walk together. Let’s live together for a while. Let’s live through a couple of futile meaningless moments and see if there might be some meaning in them. Even though this meaning doesn’t extend beyond the ends of our noses. The frog will tell us.
In this show the big secrets are necessarily eaten up by the small ones. This is undeniably obvious. We shall little by little reveal the underworld that has out of excessive curiosity about man put itself in his hands and was betrayed by him and in the meantime his heart was broken.
I am engaged in Theatre precisely because all I want is not to explain what is inside, but just to take a walk around. Let’s walk together. Let’s live together for a while. Let’s live through a couple of futile meaningless moments and see if there might be some meaning in them. Even though this meaning doesn’t extend beyond the ends of our noses. The frog will tell us.
James lhierree
Without doubt THE TOAD KNEW is the best piece staged by James Thierree since Junebug Symphony.
James Thierree is a ‘total artist’. He is capable of performing graceful somersaults in the air without parting with his violin and then of flying to a piano, shaking fountains of salt out of his ears and convolving in movement with his twin-sister... Time and again the audience feel lost in this enchanting, otherwordly space that exists on the edge between dream and nightmare. What matters here is not so much fully understanding what is going on as feeling the breath of this stirring outside-the-hours performance... Hanging above the stage is a spiral staircase that goes the endlessness. This staircase in highly instrumental in the performance of extraordinary airborne ballets... In this show James Thierree seems to be traying to expand the boundaries of performance by placing it into the elements of air, earth and water. He tells us about the curse that destroys the brotherly ties, about the characters trapped in their dreams and striving to free themselves, about children and adults, having become prisoners of their infancy. The marketplace machinery unmistakably goes back to the poetic itinerant circus of the director’s parents Victoria Chaplin and Jean-Baptiste Thierree. We find ourselves inside a phantasmagoric, imagination-stirring narrative that calls up Jules Vern’s both Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea and the fantastic absurdity of Tim Burton’s movies.
James Thierree is a ‘total artist’. He is capable of performing graceful somersaults in the air without parting with his violin and then of flying to a piano, shaking fountains of salt out of his ears and convolving in movement with his twin-sister... Time and again the audience feel lost in this enchanting, otherwordly space that exists on the edge between dream and nightmare. What matters here is not so much fully understanding what is going on as feeling the breath of this stirring outside-the-hours performance... Hanging above the stage is a spiral staircase that goes the endlessness. This staircase in highly instrumental in the performance of extraordinary airborne ballets... In this show James Thierree seems to be traying to expand the boundaries of performance by placing it into the elements of air, earth and water. He tells us about the curse that destroys the brotherly ties, about the characters trapped in their dreams and striving to free themselves, about children and adults, having become prisoners of their infancy. The marketplace machinery unmistakably goes back to the poetic itinerant circus of the director’s parents Victoria Chaplin and Jean-Baptiste Thierree. We find ourselves inside a phantasmagoric, imagination-stirring narrative that calls up Jules Vern’s both Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea and the fantastic absurdity of Tim Burton’s movies.
Culturebox