Mnouchkine's Dernier Caravanserail Opens July 17

By: Jun. 30, 2005
Enter Your Email to Unlock This Article

Plus, get the best of BroadwayWorld delivered to your inbox, and unlimited access to our editorial content across the globe.




Existing user? Just click login.

Ariane Mnouchkine's Le Dernier Caravansérail will make its North American debut as part of the Lincoln Center Festival, running from July 17th through July 31st at Lincoln Center's Damrosch Park. The presentation will also launch Act French, a citywide festival set for July - December 2005, celebrating French contemporary theater through a diverse range of performances, lectures and events at venues throughout NYC.

Created by Mnouchkine's world-renowned Théâtre Du Soleil, the 6-hour piece " has earned international acclaim through productions in Paris, London and currently, Kabul, among other cities," according to a press article.  The show is "an epic of fate-driven existence, in which no actor's foot touches the ground.  Everyone and everything rolls on and off stage in wheeled carts, pushed/pulled across stormy seas, scorching deserts and bitter snowfields in dozens of tales of myriad aspects of exile and flight."  Le Dernier Caravansérail is based on letters written by Iranian and Kurdish refugees held in France, Australia, Indonesia and New Zealand. The show, which "recalls Homer's Iliad and Odyssey" is presented in two parts, "neither pointing its finger at the West nor portraying the refugees as saintly, but giving dimension to the withering statistics."

Mnouchkine has staged some 29 productions with the theatre collective since 1964 – Shakespeare, Molière, classical Greek drama, original collaborations with Hèléne Cixous and Guy-Claude François and more – many have toured festivals around the world. Théâtre du Soleil was founded in 1964 by Mnouchkine and a small group actors / technicians from university theater; the company currently counts 80 members around the world.  The company draws on a multitude of theater traditions for its splendid spectacles – Indian dance-theater and Japanese Noh, classical Greek drama and Commedia dell'Arte – along with techniques of pantomime, acrobatics, cabaret and improvisation.

The Act French festival is organized/co-produced by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, AFAA & FACE (French American Cultural Exchange).  AFAA (Association Française d'Action Artistique) and the city of Paris proudly support the presentation of Théâtre du Soleil in New York.

The full cycle of Le Dernier Caravansérail will be presented in its two parts (The Cruel River and Origins and Destinies) on Sunday, July 17th, Saturday, July 23rd, Sunday, July 24th, Saturday, July 30th, and Sunday, July 31 at 3:00 PM.  The Cruel River will be performed on Monday, July 18th, Thursday, July 21st, Friday, July 22nd, and Wednesday, July 27th at 7:30 PM, and Origins and Destinies at the same time on Tuesday, July 19th, Thursday, July 28th and Friday, July 29th.

Lincoln Center's Damrosch Park is located at 62nd Street near Amsterdam Avenue.  For tickets/info, visit www.LincolnCenter.org.  For info on Act French, visit www.ActFrench.org.
  
 
 
Vote Sponsor


Videos