BREAK OF NOON By Paul Claudel

Presented by Exchange Theatre with Neil McPherson for the Finborough Theatre. “Noon at the sun. Noon at the centre of our lives.”

Presentation of Break of Noon

The London premiere in English of Paul Claudel’s Break of Noon is on at Finborough Theatre as part of the 150-year anniversary of Finborough Theatre’s building – and its birthday also coincides with the 150th anniversary of the birth of French symbolist playwright Paul Claudel.

Set in Hong Kong and China at the turn of the 20th century, against the backdrop of the age of Empire and the first whispers of revolt and decolonisation, Break of Noon follows the inner journeys of four people who together depict all the multifaceted faces of Love.

Ysé is at the centre of a romantic entanglement with three men: De Ciz, her unstable husband who is obsessed with business and will do anything to open new trade markets in the East; Mesa, devoted to his Catholic faith, but who was rejected for the priesthood and feels abandoned by God; and Amalric, a fortune-seeking explorer, and Ysé’s old flame, who seems to be pushing Ysé into other men’s arms, whilst still hoping she will return to him one day…

“There are many interesting questions throughout the story. What does it mean to find contentment? What is it to be a man, or to be a woman, to be both weak and strong? Does love conquer all, and whose love? Which love” LPTHeatres

Anecdote

Written in 1905, Break of Noon is a semi-autobiographical romance, based on Paul Claudel’s own real love -affair with a married woman, and his experiences as French consul in China. A modern French classic, it is a unique poetic and symbolist manifesto, in verse, on the human fragility of ambivalence and the conflicts and contradictions between physical love and spiritual faith.

Break of Noon was banned from the stage by Claudel himself for forty three years (following a recommendation from his priest during confession). His friend, famous actor and director Jean-Louis Barrault, after he’d successfully created the epic Soulier de Satin, convinced him to allow him to produce the play in 1948. Barrault’s production, in French, for the famous Renaud-Barrault Company was seen in London in 1951. Since then, it has been regularly performed, and was produced as recently as 2007 at the Comédie Française.

Casting and information

Break of Noon by Paul Claudel
Directed by David Furlong
Set Design by Ninon Fandre
Lighting by Alastair Borland
Costume Design by Sarah Habib
Cast: Elizabeth Boag, David Durham, Matt Lim and Connor Williams.

Exchange Theatre presents Break of Noon for six Sunday and Monday evenings and Tuesday matinees from Sunday, 27 May 2018 (Press Night: Monday, 28 May 2018 at 7.30pm)

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