Text, Direction: Sandra Calderan, Rébecca Chaillon / With: Sandra Calderan, Rébecca Chaillon / Light creation and stage management: Suzanne Péchenart / Dramaturgy, Collaboration in staging: Céline Champinot / Scenographic collaboration: Camille Riquier / Translation, Subtitling: Lisa Wegener / Production, Development: Mélanie Charreton / O.u.r.s.a M.I.n.o.r, Malaury Goutoule / Administration and touring: Élise Bernard, Amandine Loriol / Acknowledgements: Morgane Lory
Rébecca Chaillon & Sandra Calderan
La Gouineraie / Der Lesbengarten
- Performance
French /
with German and English surtitles /
approx. 110 mins.
Rébecca Chaillon and Sandra Calderan, self-proclaimed “lesbians from the countryside” and a couple in real life too, playfully deconstruct the myth of the traditional, heterosexual, Catholic family in this humorous performance. They show how feminism and “gouinerie” (lesbian love) can save lives – even, and especially, in the countryside.
Whilst Sandra desperately tries to build as many little houses as possible out of scrap wood, Rébecca arrives from the city to give country life a go. Surrounded by building materials, wallpaper and everyday objects, they ponder what role each of them might play in their new home and their new family.
The audience bears witness to their attempts to recreate a perfect family – amidst moments of celebration, loneliness, fantasy and failure … One after the other, they ask each other questions about the family they have inherited, the one they have invented, and the one they have chosen for themselves.
They do not offer ready-made solutions, but invite the audience to join in the search: how can families be formed when one is white, living with her ex, their children and her ex’s new family, whilst the other is Black, lives in the city and spends more time in the theatres of France and Navarre than in her own flat?
With mischievous humour, they revisit the Catholic iconography of the Holy Family. In a lavish, chaotic theatrical spectacle that mirrors their lives, they take delight in reassembling traditional, patriarchal, white, heterosexual ‘family models’. Just like in a television series spanning several seasons, their musings can take a different turn at any moment.
The title “La Gouineraie” – “The Lesbian Garden” in English – draws inspiration both from the cherry and rose orchards of the countryside and from plays such as Anton Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard”, which explores the end of an old order and the beginning of a new one. With “Der Lesbengarten”, the acclaimed French theatre director Rébecca Chaillon presents her first larger stage production in Berlin – in collaboration with the stage artist Sandra Calderan.
Team
Dates
Past
Further Information
Visitor note
Price: 17–29 €, reduced 9–20 €
Combi tickets “Love is a Verb #2”:
3 events for 30–50 €, reduced 20–40 €
6 events for 60–90 €, reduced 40–60 €
After the premiere on 16.10.: Break @WAU by Mahita
After the performance in 18.10.: Artist Talk with Aidan Riebensahm / English
Aidan Riebensahm is a moderator and writer, and is currently undertaking doctoral research into the aesthetics of Black artists in the independent theatre scene at the HBK in Braunschweig. Riebensahm’s writings have appeared in, amongst others, the literary journal “Delfi”, the “Global Lexicon of Melodrama” and the anthology “Theatre Studies Postcolonial/Theatre Studies Decolonial”.
Credits
Production: Compagnie Dans le ventre, Compagnie des Hauts Parleurs. Co-production: CDN de Besançon Franche-Comté. Supported by: T2G - Théâtre de Gennevilliers – CDN, Villa Valmont - Lormont Nouvelle Aquitaine. The first version of this performance was presented in La Pop in the frame of festival (Re)Mix. The Compagnie Dans le ventre is supported by the French Ministry of Culture (DRAC Hauts-de-France).
Location
HAU2
Hallesches Ufer 34, 10963 BerlinThere are two marked parking spots in front of the building. Barrier-free restroom facilities are available. Four relaxed seats are available in the first row of HAU2.
