Saga

Conceived and directed by

Jonathan Capdevielle

© Estelle Hanania

The second part of a theatrical autobiography that began with Adishatz/Adieu (2009), Saga is a journey to the land of childhood. At once actor, observer and author of a family tragicomedy, Jonathan Capdevielle orchestrates a symphony of words and phrases, telescoping memories and baroque situations, to tell a tale of his dark yet euphoric childhood years. And while the actors’ voices immerse us in the events of that period (late 80s-early 90s), memories come flooding in, at first chaotically, mingling and succeeding one another: from gravity to celebration; from dangerous to comical; from life to death. And through this self-portrait there emerges the portrait of a region: the Pyrenees, a remote rural world with its own personalities, language and culture; its own ways of living and feeling. A virtuoso expression of the vision of childhood, Saga traces the movement of memory, evokes in dramatic strokes salient moments in the form of the confused and abstract images coupled with long-dormant feelings. For this show, written with his sister Sylvie, Jonathan Capdevielle combines the brute force of a child’s first impressions with his own considerable stage experience. Structured by the haphazard appearance of characters who are conjured up by circumstance, Saga speaks of metamorphosis – that of the stage, but also that of the children we once were, and whom we keep within us still.