ARCHIVES 2019 / Architecture

"Hope, fortunately, can't see the future..."
In Architecture, 20^th-century Europe, traumatised by war and nationalism, serves as the backdrop to this epic written directly on the bodies and voices of exceptional actors. Gathered for the first time on a single stage, they play the different members of a family of artists, philosophers, and composers who cannot prevent the fall of their world. Their thoughts seem petrified by what they sense the future holds. Even faced with imminent horror, they can't unite to change the course of time. Writer and director Pascal Rambert wonders: “If they couldn't prevent bloodshed, how can we at a time like ours, with so few collective weapons?” As for his heroes, they tear each other apart—as is often the case in his plays, with their powerful and very physical language—and can neither flee nor fight, “gripped by fear.”


Ever since The Parisians (1989), Pascal Rambert's plays have regularly been performed at the Festival d'Avignon. A writer and director, his theatre explores our time, using the intimate language of love, desire, and the body. Director of the T2G-Théâtre de Gennevilliers from 2007 to 2016, he now travels the world to present his plays and to write and create new works for the artists he meets. His texts have been translated and adapted by many directors in France and abroad.

Architecture by Pascal Rambert is published by Les Solitaires intempestifs