Splendeurs et Illusions
Xavier Liébard
2019 - 52 min - Video Full HD - Couleur - France

They wanted to create a kind of theatre that looked alike them: a freer one, closer to the public. They decided to build a stage under the benevolent shadow of a twisted belfry, in one of the gardens settled in Fontaine Guérin, one of Maine et Loire's small villages. They prepared the plays the wanted to perform in a unhierarchical association where they imposed their own rules.
The public came to them as if for a secret gathering, and so the dream of a New People’s Theatre materialized in the middle of the countryside. This is the story of a performers’ generation in their middle thirties that have aged together, and that now become aware about the audacity and the fragility of their dream.
On their 10th anniversary, this theatre company tackles Balzac’s "Comédie Humaine" to take us into the depths of the despairs and illusions of their artist lives, through the incredible story of Lucien de Rumbempré, a young poet who dreams to go to Paris.
How not losing one’s soul when being an artist? And so, the inner tugging arises.