IMAGINARY CONVERSATION BETWEEN ALBERT CAMUS, ROSA LUXEMBURG AND THOMAS MANN, CARRIED BY AN EXCEPTIONAL CAST...

Combining musical excerpts, image projections and text readings, Inner Exiles is an imaginary dialogue between Thomas Mann and his wife Katia, Rosa Luxemburg and Albert Camus about the position of the artist when confronted with oppression. When an artist takes a stand against an authoritarian regime, what are the consequences for his life and his work? In 1936, Thomas Mann had been living in Switzerland in voluntary exile for three years. But he had said absolutely nothing publicly about politics. He even refused to participate in the Writers' Congress for the Defence of Culture, although his brother Heinrich played an important role. Because he was arguably the most prominent German writer of his time, he was pressured by both sides to take a stand. The Nazis insisted that he return to Germany and suggested that his inconceivable ideas about freedom would be ignored if he said a kind word about the Führer. The anti-fascists begged him to join them. In 1936, he decided to speak out about Nazi anti-Semitism. The next day he was stripped of his German citizenship and became stateless.

TEXTS BY THOMAS MANN, ROSA LUXEMBURG, ALBERT CAMUS, ANTONIO GRAMSCI, ELSE LASKER SCHÜLER
DIRECTION AMOS GITAI

VIDEO TSILI WITH FILM EXCERPTS FROM KIPPOUR, TERRE PROMISE, LULLABY TO MY FATHER & IN THE NAME OF THE DUCE
LIGHTING DESIGN JEAN KALMAN
COSTUMES EMMANUELLE THOMAS
ASSISTANT TO THE DIRECTOR TALIA DE VRIES
PHOTOS PASCAL GELY, VICTOR TONELLI
VIOLIN ALEXEY KOCHETKOV
ACCORDEON BRUNO MAURICE
PIANO PHILIPPE CASSARD
VOICES OF HANNAH SCHYGULLA AND JEANNE MOREAU

WITH NATALIE DESSAY, PIPPO DELBONO, JEROME KIRCHER, MARKUS GERTKEN, HANS-PETER CLOOS

PRODUCTION Théâtre de la Ville-Paris
IN ASSOCIATION WITH Agav Films

World premiere in October 1st 2020 at the Théâtre de la Ville - Les Abbesses

Ubiquité culture

What remains are the crystalline sounds of the piano and the thickness of the words that the actors have just delivered with intensity and ardour, with their inhabited presence.