la revue de presse - Le Théâtre du Soleil

théâtre du soleil in afghanistankluyver I would like to mention how difficultit is to find funding for culture, whichunfortunately is rarely seen as part of reconstructionor development of a country. I justwant to thank the Prince Klaus Fund in Holland— not because I’m Dutch myself — butbecause they have strongly supported thisproject with quite a lot of money, to allowthis workshop to happen in Afghanistan. Weactually have enough left to continue supportingthe group for the coming month, as theyprepare a play to participate in the Cairo TheaterFestival, which will happen in Augustand September, 2005, with the participationof twenty different Afghan theater groups.We hope we can see this process through, andthen after that there will be additional relationshipsin the future, hopefully.mnouchkine I must add that the FrenchMinistry of Foreign Affairs paid for the tickets.Robert gave us shelter and food, and ofcourse, everybody who went there was notpaid for three weeks, and that has to be takeninto consideration for future groups, becausethere is no money at the moment for this.And also the French Army, who transportedclown noses and costumes. I thank theFrench Army for having the good humor touse their big, good army planes to carry insuch futile materials as theater material. It’snice — many armies should do that. Take a littlebit less of that, take a little bit more of this.kluyver I think one of the big things theAfghan students learned was the spirit ofteamwork, which in the Théâtre du Soleil isespecially remarkable: all the work, cleaningup, crushing plastic bottles, is all done by theactors themselves. And this was an extremelyuseful experience for Afghans who tend tothink other people have to clean up behindthem. [Laughter] Workshops lasted eighthours a day, from eight in the morning totwelve, from two to six. Sometimes till seveno’clock, despite the heat — it was a very intensiveexperience.mnouchkine There was quite a catharticimprovisation about the Taliban. All of theactors in it were Afghan, except one.kluyver But it ended up with a woman, beatingthe Taliban — it was an Afghan woman,very nice.mnouchkine She was very happy to do that!We did many workshops, but they were not allin difficult places. Sometimes they were doneunder difficult conditions, but they were not indifficult places.I had always thought that musiciansare so lucky: they go into a country, theytake their instrument, and even if they don’tspeak the language, they will go and playnight and day, and they will understand eachother. What an art music is for that! Well, Imust say I felt exactly the same thing withtheater in Afghanistan. You take a mask, yougive the actors a little story to work with, andthere they are playing together in French andEnglish and Farsi — as long as our interpreterShasha was there, that is. I have to say if Shashahad not been there, the workshop wouldhave been totally different; she is an incredibleinterpreter, she translated very, very fast andvery, very well, and she really does translate,conveying the sense, the emotion, the intonation,everything.So here we were, in a very quiet place inKabul in the midst of a poor and unquiet areawhere we were told not to gather at night. Inthis garden there was peace, and the possibilityof discipline and concentration, which ofcourse did not happen immediately: the obligationof doing that in order to create was notimmediately clear to the young Afghans. I keptasking them, “Please be silent, please — you73