Krystian Lupa "The Waiting Room". Photo courtesy of the organisers

Krystian Lupa's latest production premieres in Paris at La Colline in a reworked version, featuring a brand new cast prior to showing at a selected number of French cities before Spring

Based on "Personkrets 3.1" / "Catégorie 3.1" by Lars Norén, the play explores the alternative reality that devours social misfits gathered at a plaza in downtown Stockholm. Following "Factory 2" and "Persona Marylin", Krystian Lupa has created "The Waiting Room", which premiered during the European Culture Congress in September 2011 at the Na Świebodzki stage of Polski Teatr in Wrocław. Now for his first production in French, the renowned Polish director worked with a brand new team of actors and crew members from France and Switzerland to bring the play to life on the La Colline Théâtre National stage in Paris.

Loosely based on Lars Norén's "Personkrets 3.1" / "Catégorie 3.1", "La Salle d'attente" / "The Waiting Room", in typical Lupa fashion, is yet another ethnographic auscultation of social margins. The title of the original play designates the frame reserved for social misfits in administration forms in Sweden. Alcoholics, drug addicts, prostitutes, psychotic and homeless people vegetate around Sergelstorg, a plaza in downtown Stockholm. The characters, wandering like empty jars of existence and voids of history all drown in a reality that depersonalises them just like an acid thrown in their faces, whereas the stage appears as the place where they come to ultimately dissolve, or save themselves. The ambiguous quest or fate of those agonizing bodies relies on the inner drive and interpretation of each actor, as they spontaneously re-invent their roles onstage under the direction of Lupa.

Indeed, in traditional Lupa method, "The Waiting Room" is primarily based on improvisation, as the project involves the significant creative participation of the actors, who design their own characters, desires and motivations. For his first French production, the director chose young actors from francophone drama schools, assigning them to reinvent their roles by writing inner, implicit monologues based on Norén's characters, to explore the forces of the irrational and subconscious, before breathing life to a staged reality filled with imaginary details. Thus, the scenario typically emerges from the actors' own inventions, which fuel the chief process Lupa employs during his work on a play. As the director explains,

Let's try to allow the actors to make the first move, let them introduce their notions, affairs, desires contained in the sketch, the embryo of the character. Later a writer (a playwright) can enter and start to cultivate situations; and so the emerging matter can wander and develop on the ever-changing ground.

Consequently, the public witnesses actions that are subject to variations and unexpected reactions as the climax is continuously fed by the actors' instincts. While the viewer assumes that each character owns his story, the voyeuristic observation of their wanderings begins. Disorientation, fatigue and stress create that micro-community within the initial stage dynamic, in parallel to the social status and handicap of each individual. They actually are double misfits, both on a psychological and social level. The night puts a crude light on this group of lost souls. They form a random micro-community, that is subject to a peculiar vivisection operated by their own interactions. From the viewer's perspective, the plaza and its guest form a strikingly disturbing image of something much wider, a sample of society viewed through the penetrating lens of a microscope.

The show is rated R - Restricted. Audience members under 16 require an accompanying parent or adult guardian, as it contains graphic scenes and language

"The Waiting Room" / "La salle d'attente" by Krystian Lupa runs between the 7th of January to the 4th of February 2012 at La Colline - théâtre national in Paris.

La Colline - théâtre national
15, rue Malte-Brun
75020 Paris

Tour dates:

• MC2 : Grenoble - from 7th to 11th February 2012
   
• Equinoxe - in Chateauroux on 16th February 2012
   
• Théâtre de l'Archipel - in Perpignan on 28th and 29th February 2012

Direction: Krystian Lupa; loosely inspired by: "Personkrets 3.1 / Catégorie 3.1" by Lars Norén; translated from Swedish by: Katrin Ahlgren and Jacques Serena; script adaptation, stage design and lighting by: Krystian Lupa; directing assistant: Lukasz Twarkowski; artistic consultant: Jean-Yves Ruf; lighting consultant: Zvezdan Miljkovic; sound and original score: Frédéric Morier; sound assistant: Jocelyn Raphanel; costumes: Piotr Skiba; video editor: Jean-Luc Marchina; video editing assistants: Baptiste Milési and Marc Vaudroz; stage design assistants: Thomas Beimowski and Simira Raebsamen.

Cast: Grazyna Maszkowska, Mariola Odzimkowska; featuring: Anthony Boullonnois, Audrey Cavelius, Claire Deutsch, Thibaut Evrard, Pierre-François Garel, Adeline Guillot, David Houri, Aurore Jecker, Charlotte Krenz, Lucas Partensky, Guillaume Ravoire, Lola Riccaboni, Mélodie Richard, Alexandre Ruby, Matthieu Sampeur.

Produced by: Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne; co-produced by: Les Nuits de Fourvière /département du Rhône, La Colline – théâtre national, MC2 : Grenoble, with the artistic participation of the Jeune Théâtre National.

The tour has been made possible with the support of the Polish Institute in Paris.

Several events are organised on the occasion of the French premiere of "The Waiting Room" / "La sale d'attente" in Paris, involving the director and his creative team's participation in special forums, as well as a special screening of the film "Wymazywanie" / "Extinction", and a drama critics workshop:

• Special meeting with Krystian Lupa on the 9th of January 2012 at 20:30.
  The director of "Factory 2" and "Persona Marylin" brings his new production to the stage of La Colline, featuring a new French and Swiss cast and crew. Krystian Lupa will share and discuss his vision of artistic theatre, where the radicalism of the stage design is nourished by the total investment of the actors.
  Free admission, only on reservation: 01 44 62 52 00 or contactez-nous@colline.fr
   
• Meeting with the artistic crew on the 17th of January 2012 after the show
   
• Special screening of the film "Wymazywanie" / "Extinction" on the 21st of January 2012 at 11:00
  With the participation of the Polish Institute in Paris.
  Film with French subtitles, shot by Polish television, from the eponymous play by Krystian Lupa, created at the Teatr Dramatczny in Warsaw, based on Thomas Bernard's novel. (duration: 5h10’).
  Free admission, only on reservation: 01 44 62 52 00 or contactez-nous@colline.fr
   
• Theatre review workshop (Atelier de critique théâtrale) on the 21stof January 2012 from 14:00 to 19:00.
  Hosted by Maïa Bouteillet, journalist for the magazine Ubu.
  For more information write to: s.chojnacki@colline.fr

La Colline - théâtre national
15, rue Malte-Brun
75020 Paris
www.colline.fr

For more information on the play and venue see: www.colline.fr