The Tempest

Adapted from W. Shakespeare

Adapted by Irina Brook

A show of the Compagny Irina Brook Directed by Irina Brook Premiere - January 14, 2010, Théâtre de Vesinet

Irina Brook est Artiste Associée de la Maison de la Culture de Nevers et de la Nièvre Executive Producer : Maison de la Culture de Nevers et de la Nièvre Co-producers : CICT/Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, Compagnie Irina Brook, Théâtre du Vésinet, Commune de Lattes -théâtre Jacques Cœur - Port-Ariane, Théâtre de Vienne, Festival International Shakespeare de Barcelone,…

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The Crew

Director

Irina Brook

Adaptation

Irina Brook

Cast

Hovnatan Avedikian

Renato Giuliani

Ysmahane Yaqini

Tony Mpoudja

Scott Koelher

Technicians

Thibault Ducros

Philippe Jasko

Alternating with :

Emmanuel Laborde

Sylvain Buc

Set

Noëlle Ginefri

Costumes

Sylvie Martin-Hyszka

Nathalie Saulnier

Lighting Designer

Arnaud Jung

Tour Manager

Thomas Boizet

Director’s notes

“ The Tempest! Another of Shakespeare's most magical and

mythical works. To each his own Shakespeare; we all have our own

favorites among his plays, the ones that touch a sensitive chord in

us, that make us want to take a great leap into the unknown,

without knowing exactly where we'll end up, that draw us on like a

Siren song and give wings to our imagination. After our adventure

with The Dream I'm still eager to explore, in particular,

extraordinary works of his that mix farce with the magical, that wed

the romantic with the exoteric.

For this project I'm plannng to take the four actors of "The

Odyssey" on board with me to set out for unknown seas and

explore new desert islands… Imagine the zaniness of a "Four -

Handed Tempest", concocted with four real troupers who've worked

with the likes of Roger Planchon, Peter Brook, Dan Jemmet, Michel

Didym, Guy Freixe, and others!

I have a few images, a few vague impressions inspired by the

actors I' ll be working with:

- Prospero, an Italian chef in his kitchen (maybe a pizzeria on a

desert island) who cooks up pasta dishes and alchemical formulas

in huge kettles and cauldrons and his daughter, the pampered

Miranda, whom he keeps completely sheltered from the outside

world yet she sports extravagant hats to protect her from the sun…

- Caliban, the badgered cook seething with anger and hurling

insults at everyone from the depths of his kitchen, smashing dishes

and ranting against his master…

- Extravagant and eccentric characters lost on their island aimlessly

adrift…

- A young woman who discovers men for the first time – "Oh, brave

new world that hath such creatures in't"

I can't wait to pack our bags and strike out for that brave new

world a profound, comic, romantic land in Technicolor that awaits

us across the seas."

Irina Brook, January 22, 2009

Bios

IRINA BROOK

Irina Brook was "born in a trunk" in Paris to director Peter Brook and

actress Natasha Parry. She spent her childhood between England

and France. When she was 18 she went to New York to study acting

with Stella Adler and got her first taste of stage work in several off -

Broadway productions.

Back in Paris she played in her father's productions of Chekov's

Cherry Orchard and Moliere's Don Juan at the Bouffes du Nord

Theatre.

Then in London she had a busy period working in television, film

and on stage.

In the middle of the 1990's she turned her energy to directing.

Her first production Beast on the Moon, written by the American

Richard Kalinoski, opened in London in May 1996. Then came

Nicholas Wright's Mrs. Klein in Watford and Shakespeare's All's

Well that Ends Well in Oxford.

In 1998 she directed a French adaptation of Beast on the Moon at

the Vidy Theatre in Lausanne, Switzerland. The show then played in

Bobigny, did an international tour and ran at the Theatre de

l'Oeuvre in Paris. That production received 5 Molières, the French

Theatre Awards, among which "Best Director" and "Best Show."

She also directed a version for TV, which won her the Mitrani Prize

at the F.I.P.A., the International Festival of Audiovisual Programs in

Biarritz.

Irina is one of the rare director's invited to direct Ariane

Mnouchkine's Troupe, Theatre du Soleil in a production of All's

Well That Ends Well for the Avignon Theatre Festival.

In 2000 she directed Katherine Burger's Morphic Resonance at the

Theatre de l'Atelier, which won the Moliere Award for "Feminine

Theatrical Revelation" and the S.A.C.D. Award for "Outstanding

Newcomer".

Her young audience version of Homer's Odyssey created for the

Festival of Sartrouville also ran at Paris's Bouffes du Nord Theatre.

A very prolific period followed: Juliette et Romeo in Lausanne and

the National Theatre of Chaillot, 2002; Brian Friel's Dancing at

Lughnasa with the Vidy Theatre in Lausanne, Bobigny and on tour

and in Tokyo; The Glass Menagerie (Tennessee Williams) in 2001, a

co-production Theatre de l'Atelier – Theatre de Vidy; The Good

Woman of Sechuan (Bertold Brecht) in Lausanne, The National

Theatre of Chaillot, and an extensive and very successful tour.

Then The Bridge of San Luis Rey, adapted from Thornton Wilder's

novel with the Vidy Theatre of Lausanne then at the Theatre de

Sceaux and more recently Marivaux's Ile des Esclaves at the

Theatre de l'Atelier.

In February 2006, she was invited to recreate her production of The

Glass Menagerie at the New National Theatre of Tokyo with a

Japanese cast.

A recent show, Waiting for the Dream, is an adaptation of A

Midsummer Night's Dream played by 6 men. It was created

outdoors for the Festival Dedans-Dehors in Bretigny, and then

played in France and Switzerland. This production did a 3-week run

in Avignon's off festival, Villeneuve-en-Scene in 2007, touring in

2007-08 in France, Bouffes du Nord in Paris, Athens, Italy, Germany,

Morocco and the Festival d'Automne in Madrid…with the 2008-'09

season the show will top 200 performances.

Irina has also directed several operas. First, Mozart's The Magic

Flute, co-directed with the English director Dan Jemmet for the

Reisopera in the Netherlands – Musical Direction, Ton Koopman.

She then directed Eugene Oneguin for the Aix-en-Provence Music

Festival followed by Cenerentola at the Théâtre des Champs-

Elysées in Paris and the Teatro Communale, Bologna, Italy.

Her Traviata, a co-production with the Théâtre de Lille and Bologna

won warm critical acclaim.

At the Théâtre des Champs-Elyséees she directed Haendel's Giulio

Cesare. Her production of La Cenerentola was then revived at the

Royal Opera House of Stockholm.

In the fall of 2007 she was invited to direct Il Burbero de Buon Cuore

by Martin y Soler at Madrid's Teatro Real.

She has been invited to direct Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer

Night's Dream in 2009.

In 2002, she was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the

French Minister of Culture.

Tony Mpoudja / Caliban Ce jeune comédien de 27 ans s’est formé sur les planches à l’Ecole de Théâtre de

Chaillot, puis en suivant les cours de Peter Brook.

Au théâtre, on a pu le voir dans La Magie Noire, mise en scène de Michel Didym, Le

Costume (Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord en 2003, puis en tournée internationale) et

Tierno Bokar, mis en scène par Peter Brook en 2005.

Au cinéma, il a tourné dans les long-métrages suivants : La Squale de Fabrice Généstal

en 1999, Dans tes rêves de Denis Thybaud avec Béatrice Dalle en 2004, Scorpion de

Julien Siri en 2006 avec Clovis Cornillac, ainsi que dans quelques courts-métrages de

Mohamed Camara, Jean-Paul Salomé, Fabrice Benchouache et Valérie Schatz.

À la télévision, on a pu le voir dans des séries comme Le Lycée réalisé par Miguel

Courtois, La Commune réalisé par Philippe Triboit, et des téléfilms tels que Le Baptême

du boiteux, de Paule Zadjerman, ou Procès de famille d’Alain Tasma. En 2008, il est

engagé au théâtre par Irina Brook pour Une Odyssée, et interprète le rôle principal du

film Les Orpailleurs, réalisé en Guyane par Marc Barrat. En 2009 Tony commence

l'année en jouant dans Boumkoeur mise en scène par Habib Nagmouchin.

Il a obtenu en 2001 le Prix du Meilleur Espoir du Festival de Paris

RENATO GIULIANI This young 55-year old Italian is an actor, director, playwright and has a

State Diploma as Theatre Professor.

As an actor, he has already worked with Irina Brook in Berthold Brecht’s

The Good Woman of Sechuan, Julius Cesar in Egypt, an Opera by

Haendel; with Guy Freixe in Molière’s Don Juan (a production for the

Grignan Festival, 2005); in Gariné, an Opera by Dikran Tchouhadjian

directed by Gerald Papasian and recently in Kroum l’Ectoplasme (Hanokh

Levin) directed by Guy Freixe.

He has done several films in Italy: La Donna Della Domenica directed by

Luigi Comencini, 1975; Ombre sotto I Portici, Maurizio Rotundi, 1989;

Poliziotti by Stéphane Giusti, 2008. He himself has directed several full -

length films for television.

During his career Renato has also been an artistic collaborator with Guy

Freixe, Irina Brook and Claude Montagner.

BARTIOMIEJ SOROCZYNSKI This multi-talented Canadian, originally from Poland, was "born in a

trunk" to a couple of circus performers. The circus was part of his life right

from early childhood and he made his stage debut at the age of on 5

doing clown work on his monocycle along with his parents in Winnipeg,

Canada. All during his childhood and adolescence he continued training in

dance and music along with his circus work and performed in a good

number of circus and theatre shows throughout Canada. Then he

attended the National Circus School in Montreal. There he discovered

clowning and specialized in it under the teacher, Yves Dagenais.

It was not until 2002, however, that he got his first role in the Cirque

Eloize's production of Nomade directed by Daniele Finzi Pasca. The show

toured the world for 4 years, playing in all the European capitals as well as

Asia, The Middle East, North and South America. Thanks to this

experience with Daniele Finzi Pasca, he sharpened his acting skills and

decided to turn to theatre. He studied with John Strasberg in Paris and

New York, Jack Waltzer in Paris, Marc Zammit in Montreal and Hector

Bidonde in Buenos aires.

In the summer on 2007 he was actor and circus performer in the film

Magique directed by Philippe Muyl and shot in Quebec.

At the beginning of 2008 he was invited to work with the Théâtre du Conte

Amer where he played the roles of Julien Sorel in Le Rouge et le Noir

(Stendhal) and Harlequin in Marivaux's l' Ile aux Esclaves. During this time

he met Irina Brook who took him on for Somewhere… La Mancha created

in Vésinet in May-June 2008 where he puts his many talents to good use.

During the performances of Somewhere… La Mancha in Avignon in the

summer of 2008 he was noticed by the actrice/director Nora Armani who

offered to direct him in a monologue adapted from William Saroyan's

work Papa You're Crazy. The piece was created in New York and

premiered at the Centenary Celebration of Willian Saroyan in Erevan,

Armenia in October 2008.

In early 2009 he began to discover Polish theatre as assistant to Krystian

Lupa

In his work on Persona at Warsaw's Teatr Dramatyczny.

YSMAHANE YAQINI Ysmahane, with a Masters in theatre Studies, has been acting on stage for

over 10 years.

She has acted in Marivaux's Ile des Esclaves directed by Khalid Tamer;

Mozart's Don Giovanni directed by Peter Brook; the original version of

Irina Brook's adaptation of The Odyssey; Sur le Vif an original play by

Jean-Christophe Bailly directed by Gilberte Tsäi; Berthold Brecht's The

Good Woman of Sechuan directed by Irina Brook; Silence Complice a

creation of the Theatre de l'Opprimé directed by Thissa Bensallah and

recently Le médicin de son honneur (Calderon) directed by Hervé Petit.

She has also appeared in a number of films: La Traversée, a short film by

Maeva Poli, and the feature films: La Vérité ou Presque by Sam Karmann

and Le Nouveau protocole by Thomas Vincent.

Ysmahane was assistant director to Irina Brook in Rossini's opera, La

Cenerentola, which premiered at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in 2003.

SCOTT KOELHER

Scott Koehler studied at both Curtin and Murdoch Universities in Perth,

Western Australia. He completed a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and

Film/Television in 1996 and immediately began to work professionally.

He has worked as a performer in Perth with many companies including:

Kaos Theatre, Perth Theatre Co., Buzz Dance Theatre and also taught at

the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.

In 1999 he received a Creative Development Fellowship from Ministry for

the Arts and Culture of Western Australia as well a grant from the Ian

Potter Foundation. He worked as an apprentice with the New World

Performance Laboratory in Ohio, USA and also studied with various

teachers in Europe such as Philippe Gaulier, Linda Wise, Claire Heggen

and at the International Institute for the Marionette in France.

He began working with Compagnie Philippe Genty in 2002 and has

performed in “ Vanishing Point” (2003-2005) and “ Boliloc” (2007-). He has

toured with the Company throughout Europe, Asia and South America.

In 2004 he completed a solo show with Australian designer Zoe Atkinson

based on Lewis Carroll’s “ The Hunting of the Snark” . The show titled

“ Snark: The Way of the bravest” has toured in Australia, Spain and

France.

This multi-talented performer has joined Compagnie Irina Brook for the

adaptation of Tempest.