“Christophe Pellet is a real bastard: Ibsen, like a good “ghost”, came to knock Nan Goldin up, without saying anything. In the theatre scene in France, here is the offspring who scares and lives in the margin. Sometimes in the clouds. Pellet is Ibsen’s distant and lost son because he takes up again, on the backround of a wrongly floating conversation, with the tragic: we can tell there the story of a contamined youth, rotting, “dying”, very slowy; the sons are getting “killed” by their parents. Theses sons who don’t achieve anymore to establish a link with the world. Tragedy of the breaking between desire and reality.”
[Frederic Vossier]
Christophe Pellet was born in Toulon in 1963, he is graduated from FEMIS.
His texts, published by l’Arche Editeur, were staged by Jacques Lasalle, Mathieu Roy, Anne Théron, Stanislas Nordey, Renaud Marie Leblanc, Olivier Martinaud, Michael Delaunoy, Madeleine Louarn, Jacques David, Jean-Louis Thamin,Carlos Manuel, Jean-Pierre Miquel, Mary Peate.
They were translated into English, German, Portuguese, Arabic, Spanish.
He made two short films and one medium-length film:
– Soixante trios regards, with Mireille Perrier, Dominique Reymond, Françoise Lebrun, Katarzyna Krotki in 2011 (Bathysphère production, 50 mn).
– Plus dure sera la chute, in 2010 (Sedna film, 10 mn).
– Le garçon avec les cheveux dans les yeux, with Edith Scob, in 2008 (20 mn).
He was Villa Medicis Hors les murs laureate) in 2004, and scholarship holder from CNL.
Theatre works
2000 / Le Garçon Girafe; published by L’Arche Editeur
2001 / En délicatesse, suivi de: Des jours meilleurs; first staged: 2001, Théâtre de la tempête ; published by L’Arche Editeur
2003 / S’opposer à l’orage, suivi de: Une Nuit dans la Montagne; published by L’Arche Editeur
2005 / Loin de Corpus Christi; first staged: 2009, Théâtre du Rideau, Bruxelles, 2012, Théâtre de la ville, Paris ; published by L’Arche Editeur
2006 / Erich von Stroheim; first staged: 2010, Scène Nationale du Merlan, 2010 ; published by L’Arche Editeur
2009 / Un doux reniement, suivi de: La conférence, Le garçon avec les cheveux dans les yeux; La Conférence : first staged: 2011, Théâtre du Rond Point, Paris ; published by L’Arche Editeur
2010 / Soixante trois regards; published by L’Arche Editeur
2010 / Qui a peur du loup; first staged: 2011 Scène nationale de Thouars; published by L’Arche Editeur
2011 / Seul le feu; published by L’Arche Editeur
2012 / Les disparitions, suivi de : De passage, endormi; published by L’Arche Editeur
Les Disparitions
The play (The) Disappearances takes us to a future world where screens that were part of our daily lives have now disappeared. New relationships can be formed between people, new connections with other people’s bodies – sex or love relationships. Spontaneity can be revived, a sense of commitment to bodies and souls, a lover’s discourse can be resumed. But will the awareness of the suffering body lead to a political rebellion? And why not, to a genuine revolution?
– Extracts from Les disparitions –
Wilbur:
In front of my gaze: bodies.
They appear then they are imprinted
I always need new ones:
New bodies.
My gaze needs them.
It is craving these bodies.
Audrey:
Hi.
Wilbur:
Come into my gaze.
( She complies)
I like you.
Audrey:
I have a boyfriend.
Wilbur:
You cheat on him then?
Audrey:
No, I don’t cheat on him.
Wilbur:
But you are here.
Audrey:
Am I here?
Wilbur:
You are here, in front of my gaze.
Audrey:
One part of me is exposed in front of your gaze, yes.
Wilbur:
What about the other part? With your boyfriend?
Audrey:
One of the other parts of me is with my boyfriend, yes.
And still elsewhere, other parts of me.
Wilbur:
Can I imprint you in my gaze?
Audrey:
Go ahead.
Wilbur:
Can I touch you?
Audrey:
So fast? Okay, go ahead.
( He touches Audrey’s shoulder, then recoils as if he had been burnt.)
Audrey:
That’s really me.
I am really here.
My name is Audrey.
Wilbur:
Show me your breasts, Audrey.
My name is Wilbur.
( She complies)
Audrey:
Show me something beautiful.
Wilbur:
You want me to show you something beautiful?
Audrey:
Something that comes from you, yes.
Wilbur:
I don’t think I am beautiful.
I will show you what you think is beautiful in me.
Audrey:
We are two bodies new for each other.
Beauty is contact between our two still unexplored bodies.
Wilbur:
Our unexplored bodies?
Audrey:
Like a territory, or a landscape.
Show me something beautiful.
Wilbur:
My body?
My face?
Audrey:
Show me your eyes.
Wilbur:
My eyes? My face then?
Audrey:
Your eyes. Just your eyes.
( He complies)
Audrey:
Show me what’s behind. What’s behind your eyes.
Wilbur:
How could I show you what’s behind my eyes?
Audrey:
You asked me to come into your gaze.
I am here.
You said: “ Show me your breasts.”
And I did.
Now I’m asking you:
Show me what’s behind your eyes.
Beauty, behind your eyes.
Unexplored beauty.
Dimitri:
Audrey? Do you still remember me?
Audrey:
You are still in me. A little.
Dimitri:
Only a little?
Very little?
How little?
Audrey:
It’s been such a long time, Dimitri.
I don’t work anymore, you know.
Dimitri:
You really believed in your CCTV company,
( surveillance camera company) did you?
Audrey:
I believed in it a little. As I believed in you. Then you dumped me. And I lost my job.
Dimitri:
You really believed in that job market?
Audrey:
I thought I could throw myself into it for a few years, just before my first child. Our first child. Remember? I thought I could throw myself into it, just as with you. Then I would have settled down, quietly, I would have settled down with my child. I would have shown how good I was, after training a brand new generation. I would have gained a kind of wisdom. I would have outdone myself in work. (I would have reached self-transcendence in work)
Dimitri:
No self-transcendence in work is possible.
Audrey:
I must have done something wrong, or nothing at all possibly, that’s what indeed I understood in the end: I was not real in that company. I was there without being really there. I lost my job, you disappeared, you faded away and I had no children.
Dimitri:
We just endure to be part of this crushing machine, the job market. That’s why I left everything. I did not leave you, I left the whole system.
Audrey:
You did not leave me? Is that why you’re coming back now, in front of me?
Dimitri:
You never took your job again?
Audrey:
I was doing my job, I was watching without being watched, I was doing deeds that were expected from me, but nothing more than those mechanical deeds was expected from me and one day, those deeds became obsolete? The screens disappeared.
Dimitri:
How did you free yourself from the machine?
Audrey:
I was fired. The firm went bankrupt shortly after. It had become useless too. No interface, no surveillance cameras.
My life shattered like glass. As they disappeared, the screens also destroyed my gaze, my gestures, my thoughts. And you had already become invisible.
Dimitri:
I got away from the placatory flow. This flow has disappeared today, that’s why I’m coming closer to the bodies.
( He kisses Audrey on the cheek)
Come back to me!
Audrey:
I have no strength left to fight for or throw myself into anything. You are right, Dimitri, I have been crushed by this company – this machine.
Dimitri:
All this time to finally find each other again. Come with me.
( He kisses Audrey in the neck)
Audrey:
Melancholy has settled in, you know, and with it, a yearning for travelling. Only the wildest landscapes could be a source of comfort after my loss.
Dimitri:
No loss, we have found each other again.
( He kisses Audrey on the forehead)
Audrey:
The desert was a source of comfort for being a failure, and the ocean too. They didn’t betray me by staying within. Within reach and within sight.
Dimitri:
You are within my sight again.
( He kisses Audrey in the nape of the neck)
Audrey:
One day as I was going through those landscapes – a forest of birches riddled with lakes -, they started talking to me: the trees, the treetops, the waves, and the multi-coloured sands were saying: “ You are not a failure, you are not eaten alive by artificial light, you are not breathing in the dust of an office. You feel great here with us. Alive. Your feet on a ground that is scrunching, soft or firm under your steps.
Dimitri:
Nature will make our coming together even stronger. We will find shelter in its midst. And we will finally love each other.
( They lean closer and their lips are sealed in a long kiss. Audrey moves away.)
Dimitri:
You must come and join me, Audrey. You are ready too.
Audrey:
Ready?
Dimitri:
Ready to finally exist, away from their dirty gaze.
You will only exist through my gaze.
Audrey:
I am not ready yet, Dimitri.
Melancholy is still within me. It is soothing to me. It is bringing me closer to beauty. I‘ve yearned for beauty so much! The beauty of the mountains, the waves, the deserts and the forests. It gradually replaced another form of beauty, the beauty of human beings.
Dimitri:
No beauty can be found in most human beings.
Audrey:
Do you really think so?
Dimitri:
I had to go away to understand: the beauty of human beings cannot be set against the untouched beauty of nature.
Audrey:
Human beings stand behind a glass pane, not landscapes.
Screens have disappeared, and human eyes have become screens in turn.
Their eyes are screens.
Audrey:
Show me what’s behind your eyes.
Wilbur:
Behind my eyes?
Audrey:
Beauty.
