• Thursday 18 November 2010 - 20h30
• Friday 19 November 2010 - 20h30
• Saturday 20 November 2010 - 15h00
• Saturday 20 November 2010 - 20h30
• Monday 22 November 2010 - 20h30
• Tuesday 23 November 2010 - 20h30

Pupil and mistress
The director is English, the author and actors are Japanese, and the story is  disturbingly timeless and universal .

The second show performed by Complicité, Simon McBurney’s company, in collaboration with the company of the Setagaya Theatre in Tokyo, is a love story, a story of passion, cruelty, and devotion verging on masochism. It is an adaptation for the stage of Shun-kin, a fascinating story by Jun’ichiro Tanizaki. Unlike The Elephant Vanishes, McBurney's former show, which was performed by the same actors and was set in busy contemporary Japan, Shun-kin takes place in the XIXth century in a mysterious shadowy atmosphere. It does not prevent Simon McBurney from juxtaposing different eras to create various angles of interpretation and vision. Thus the author himself  speaks, along with a contemporary actress who is supposed to record the story for the radio. Once upon a time, there was a rich heiress whose name was Shun-kin. She has become blind and stands out for her great mastery  of the shamisen. One day she decides to teach Sakuke, her young servant, the art of playing the instrument, while inflicting on him many a blow and humiliating him unceasingly. Having taken him as her lover, but will also require an supreme sacrifice. It is an exploration of a sadomasochistic and almost inhuman relationship, where beauty vies with emotional turmoil.

Hugues. Le Tanneur