TROIS
Un: Mani is alone onstage. Deux: His friend Manu faces him. Trois: 44 people from near and far question and contradict their sense of belonging. A necessary quest for identity.
WE ARE THE WORLD – À LA MONTRÉAL
Un: In June 2009 while the police were violently suppressing the Iranian nation’s desire for democracy, the Montrealer Mani wondered how much of an Iranian he still was. Deux: Mani and his friend Manu, another Montrealer of Jewish and French Canadian background, are unable to see in each other the basis of their respective identities. Trois: Onstage are 44 actors from near and far who have made their way to the human and urban mosaic that is Montreal, 44 who deprive Mani of speech as they appropriate it for themselves, taking issue with his words and dismantling them into splinters and fragments in order to understand their own scattered identities.
In barely two shows Mani Soleymanlou has established a reputation as a remarkable and necessary artist, inventing an amazingly unrestricted space-time between theatre and performance art. Faced with the artist’s quest for identity each spectator is complicit, and can’t help but contemplate his own identity. The creation of the third segment of his triptych promises once again to stimulate a lively response.
PRODUCED BY ORANGE NOYÉE
WRITTEN BY MANI SOLEYMANLOU WITH THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE PERFORMERS
DIRECTED BY MANI SOLEYMANLOU
PERFORMED BY MARCELO ARROYO + SOUNIA BALHA + RACHEL BESSETTE + ADRIEN BLETTON + JEAN-ROBERT BONNEAU + JÉRÉMIE BRASSARD + MARCO COLLIN + LUCIE M. CONSTANTINEAU + ANDRÉANNE DAIGLE + ÈVE-CHEMS DE BROUWER + MOHSEN EL GHARBI + GABRIEL FAVREAU + JONATHAN FORTIN + GEOFFREY GAQUÈRE + MATTHIEU GIRARD + KARINE GONTHIER-HYNDMAN + MATHIEU GOSSELIN + JOANIE GUÉRIN + TALIA HALLMONA + CHARLES-AUBEY HOUDE + MAXIME ISABELLE + AUDREY LACHAPELLE LARIVÉE + JUSTIN LARAMÉE + DENIS LAVALOU + DOMINIQUE LECLERC + ALEXIS LEFEBVRE + SIMON-XAVIER LEFEBVRE + LEYLI MACHOUF + JEAN-MOÏSE MARTIN + MIREILLE METELLUS + MARIE-LAURENCE MOREAU + IANNICKO N’DOUA-LÉGARÉ + RODLEY PHILOGENE-PITT + BRUNO PICCOLO + GABRIELLE POULIN + CHRISTOPHE RAPIN + EMMANUEL SCHWARTZ + MAZYAR SHAHCHERAGHI + MANI SOLEYMANLOU + ELKAHNA TALBI + INES TALBI + LEÏLA THIBEAULT LOUCHEM + CYNTHIA WU-MAHEUX
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR AND SET MANAGER JEAN GAUDREAU
LUMIÈRES ERWANN BERNARD
SON LARSEN LUPIN
COPRODUCTION FESTIVAL TRANSAMÉRIQUES + CENTRE DU THÉÂTRE D’AUJOURD’HUI
WRITTEN BY PAUL LEFEBVRE
TRANSLATED BY NEIL KROETSCH
WORLD PREMIÈRE AT FESTIVAL TRANSAMÉRIQUES, JUNE 2, 2014
MANI SOLEYMANLOU | ORANGE NOYÉE (MONTRÉAL)
The Art of Floating in many a Universe
Born in Teheran, Mani Soleymanlou left his native country as a child to live successively in Paris, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal, where he graduated from the National Theatre School of Canada’s acting program in 2008. As an actor he has performed in many important plays in Montreal in recent years, working with exacting directors such as Alice Ronfard and Claude Poissant, and participating in works like Furieux et désespérés by Olivier Kemeid and L'affiche by Philippe Ducros.
