We will come back in the spring is an adaptation of The Cherry Orchard by Chekhov. The direction of Simón Adinia Hanukai is resolutely modern, mixing commitment and the experimental to tell the world as it is. A young troupe sparkling with energy and ideas, high-flying avant-garde theater, a moment of rare intensity, both dramatic and entertaining. Interview translated from English.
7 mins
RFI: Why The Cherry Orchard ?
Simon Hanukai Adinia : The Cherry Orchard is one of the few plays that continues to be performed regularly since its creation 120 years ago. This work shows us a Russian society in full change and at the same time explores themes which are completely topical: the instability of social affiliations in changing societies, the centrality of memory while our gaze is solicited by the challenges of the future, the importance of loving and fully living one’s passions even when everything is collapsing around them, and, finally, the quest for roots even though the foundations of the idea of ”home” self” are attacked from all sides.
How the issues of our contemporary world resonate through the fabric of The Cherry Orchard ?
Our society, like that of Anton Chekhov’s Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, seems to be on the verge of cracking. Our news feeds, social media and conversations are filled with images, slogans that challenge the very fabric of our divided world. Citizens have lost confidence in governments. Movements that would have been dismissed for their extremism a few years ago are now gaining resonance. Calls are increasing to close the borders in order to protect this “ beautiful orchard » against alleged threats of invasion, transformation and destruction. In my opinion, these thematic obsessions, like Chekhov’s own theatrical writing, make The Cherry Orchard a very contemporary piece.
In your adaptation of The Cherry Orchard, the central character Louise is French. She returns from New York to attend the sale of the property where she grew up. While his prototype Lyubov in Chekhov’s play is marked by the socio-political experience of his time, what are the socio-political upheavals which forged Louise’s personality? ?
Louise is grappling with her personal grief and a society in profound change. In Chekhov, the heroine is a matriarch, the head of a family from the Russian aristocracy. For centuries, this nobility lived in luxury, first profiting from the work and sweat of subordinates in a society founded on serfdom, then struggling to catch up once this system of feudal servitude was abolished. We will come back in the spring transposes Louise into the contemporary French context, and Russian serfdom becomes, without naming it, the colonial exploitation from which her family benefited. The consequences of this toxic colonial past where power mixes with ill-gotten wealth permeate the entire narrative fabric of the play, affecting the relationships between the characters. We did not have to change a single comma in Chekhov’s text to represent these power relations at work in the contemporary French context.
What makes Chekhov’s dramaturgy rich are his characters who are not presented only through the socio-political prism, but also through personal experiences which are added to the historical context. It is this cocktail that makes Chekhov excel in representing the thousand nuances of the human condition. In our adaptation of The Cherry Orchard, we have remained faithful to the personality of Lyubov as presented by the Russian master. She is haunted by the accidental death of her little boy, which she sees as punishment for her infidelities. She is also overwhelmed by five long years of exile that she imposed on herself, an exile made even more unbearable because of the psychological torture she suffered at the hands of a violent lover and which pushed her into deep depression and suicide.
Lopaque, who is the new owner of the estate, is the grandson of the serfs who once worked there. He is part of the nouveau riche class. His role is played by a black actor, just like that of his supposed fiancée Varia who is portrayed by a black actress. Why did you choose black actors to play these roles?
The choice of actors is not accidental in this show. It is on purpose that we did not want to choose white actors to play the roles of Lopaque (Lopakhine), Véra (Varia) and Firmin (Firs), played respectively by the talented Nicolas Giret-Famin, Sophie Richelieu and Mahmoud Said. The idea was to show that the concepts of class and race are interconnected in our modern societies. These choices are linked to the central question of the play: who has the right to call themselves European? Furthermore, I believe that the theatrical space, actors and spectators alike, should reflect the beautiful diversity of our societies. This conviction is at the heart of the live shows carried by the company I co-created called Kaimera, based in New York and Paris.
What is particularly original in your play is the immersive form of your staging. How does the immersive bring Chekhov’s work up to date?
From my very first reading of The Cherry Orchard, I imagined that his action was not just about the family that owns the property in question in the room, but about the entire community living in the neighborhood. In the show, this community is represented by the audience who embody the neighbors who have come to celebrate the return of the protagonist Louise. They are witnesses and sometimes even accomplices in the action which ultimately leads to the ruin of the character. In the immersive device, the abolition of the fourth wall allows the audience to participate in a new aesthetic experience consisting of exploring the universe represented on stage not only thanks to their imagination, but with all their senses, as and when it unfolds in the scenographic space.
Could you look back on your international career and recall how this experience influenced your artistic vision and more particularly the staging of your new play adapted from Chekhov?
Yes, my personal and professional journey has profoundly influenced the staging of We will come back in the spring. I am originally from Azerbaijan, a country that I was forced to leave at the age of 12, with my entire family, following the outbreak of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. We arrived in the United States as refugees, not speaking a word of English and with only $500 in our pockets and five suitcases. I was deeply affected by this experience. Traces of this experience are found in particular in my approach to questions of belonging and roots and continue to resonate in my work as a director. When I turned 37, I had to take on a new personal challenge, that of coming to settle in France. This second departure certainly took place in very different conditions, but as I had no knowledge of French, I had to in a way start everything from scratch, at the same time giving a new direction to my questions.
On a professional level, I was very marked at the beginning of my career by the work of Augusto Boal on the Theater of the Oppressed, and in particular his reflections on the transformation of the passive role of the spectator into that of ” spect-actor ” engaged. I continued to explore these concepts during my Master’s degree in directing at Columbia University in New York, which I did at age 30. Today, Kaimera, our live performance company, continues to work on developing experimental dramatic forms to explore fundamental societal issues.
We will come back in the spring is playing at the Théâtre de l’Epée de Bois – La Cartoucherie until September 17. For more information and tickets, www.kaimeraproductions.com