THE EXCHANGE By Paul Claudel
The British Premiere of The Symbolist Masterpiece.
Selected at the Hackney Empire's Spice Festival, the 21st of July 2007
At
the edge of the Ocean in the United States, a young couple: Louis Laine,
a native American Indian and his young wife Marthe, a French woman. They
meet another couple: Thomas Pollock Nageoire, a rich self made-business
man and Lechy Elbernon, an eccentric actress. An exchange takes place not
only among the characters, but also between the cultures and times. The
Exchange recounts the contradiction between money and spirituality.
The Exchange by Paul Claudel is a major play in the French Theatrical landscape. This classic masterpiece is unknown in the UK. This contemporary revival of the play is a unique and challenging moment of theatre: a universal cocktail of vaudeville and melodrama. Claudel was 25 when he wrote the Exchange in 1893; he was ahead of his time, a symbolist poet facing his doubts in a world in conflict. Nowadays, this revival of The Exchange seems the most contemporary choice.
Claudel was like TS Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Joyce, or even Tagore, a symbolist poet. He was a diplomat at the dawn of the first worldwide conflict, working in a world torn between a history of killing, and the hope of a brighter future. When looking closely at such a description and comparing it to the present time, are we not yet living once again in a world of uncertainty? Since 9/11, our certitudes have eroded. Today’s world is lost in its contradiction, between the world of money and spirituality. The Exchange provides a vision of material opulence, which can be coupled with a spiritual emptiness.
Links
Read the review and the interview of David Furlong by Michael Donley