ARCHIVES 2015 / Fugue

Starting with an old musical form, the fugue, this eponymous show dissects its principles in order to reveal its skeleton. The story, obviously musical, if not operatic, is based on the question of the Pythagorean temperament. Its paradox: the cycle of fifths it is based on cannot be closed, as a comma is missing from the last one. The mathematical relationship is perfect in theory, and yet in practice the cycle it produces is a spiral. To embody this question, have fun with it, and maybe solve its impossible harmony, the musician-actor-singers brought together by Samuel Achache combine their voices, like the subjects and countersubjects of a fugue, and delve into the ideas of being in tune and of misunderstanding. If the modern man can accept tiny disharmonies in the relationships between notes, does he extend the same clemency to human relationships? How can we follow a common code and hope to create a unique conversation? It is never a given that we'll be in tune with someone else. Repeated attempts to agree with the other lead some to leave the world and its conventions; to enter a state of fugue. Samual Achache and his accomplices have decided to play with those conventions, to subject them to some abuse, in order to rethink what it means to be in tune. Their modern instruments mistreat ancient music...When points of view shift, what was once dissonant sometimes becomes very enjoyable.

Reconciling music and theatre, Samuel Achache feels a very strong attachment towards both disciplines. After graduating from the French National Academy of Dramatic Arts in 2006, he worked as an actor with Sylvain Creuzevault and Vincent Macaigne. The lack of music he experiences on theatre stages and in his own work leads him in 2013 to create with Jeanne Candel Le Crocodile trompeur / Didon et Enée, an absurd opera which already called on the harmony of the spheres and on ancient music. He then joined the Collectif artistique de La Comédie de Valence. As a director, Samuel Achache wants to continue questioning the essential interdependence between the theatre and live music.Pulling them towards each other, he puts to the test the tension that exists between those disciplines, but also between registers and tones; even though his research focuses on serious questions and tragic themes, his shows are based on the inherent joy there is to playing together.