L’écran comme vecteur de la mémoire du théâtre

Abstract

This article shows how Ivo van Hove’s performance Les Damnés, based on Visconti’s film, reuses material from ancient Greek theatre. The stage director introduces the cinematographic idiom with the use of the camera in order to keep the continuity with Visconti’s film. Members of the Von Essenbeck family are characters bearing resemblance to Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Orestes, Aegisthus and Creusa, Jason’s new wife. Their actions can be understood and magnified by the simultaneous reading of the Greek tragedies (Oresteia, Orestes, Electra, Medea). Thus, we establish the characters’ ancient nature, which gives them an archetypal consistency, while, by the use of the camera, the stage deepens its insight on them, focusing on the details of their faces and the actors’ work.