• From Thursday 1 to Saturday 3 October 2009 - 20h30
• Sunday 4 October 2009 - 15h00
• From Tuesday 6 to Friday 9 October 2009 - 20h30

This is November 2 1938, the Spanish civil war is about to end with Franco’s victory, the world-war II may begin. We are in Mexico, where a huge baroque festival celebrates All Souls Day. This is a capital day in the crumbling life of ageing Geoffrey Finn, a former, American consul, seeped into the hallucinatory universe of alcohol. He has lost his job and his wife; he vainly tries to get her back. She has a new life, with other experiences; he doesn’t know how to love any more, doesn’t know how to live with others or understand the life around him. Assailed by ghosts and mirages, he is haunted by the memory of what he has destroyed and runs round in circles, in the loneliness of his private hell. As his mind rambles, we come to know his story.

Guy Cassiers has adapted Malcolm Lowry’s novel, with the help of Josse de Pauw, who plays the consul. With textual sequences, characters on stage, image projections and a variety of music, the virtual and living worlds mesh into one single story.

“It is not necessary to express through words what the images say nor to express through images what the words say. In this piece sorrow, loneliness and despair are conveyed through poetry. The want of communication is communicated through the beauty of words. The whole show is a tribute to the power of language.”

Colette Godard

Avec le Festival d'Automne à Paris