Tiago Rodrigues reflects on justice and vulnerability in his version of ‘Hécuba’

This is the first collaboration between the historic French company (it was founded by Louis XIV in 1680) and the Portuguese director, one of the most relevant European playwrights of our days. “I love the theater of Tiago Rodrigues, and I love that its quality, as profoundly profound as it is solidly simple, is so similar to him,” he says. Eric Rufgeneral director of the Comédie-Française, who explains that the director “will take over Euripides’ Hecuba, this avenging figure, and will inscribe – will write – a parallel story inspired by a state scandal of mistreatment of autistic children.” Seven of the eighty-one members of the company – ‘La Troupe’: 38 ‘sociétaires’, or members; 22 ‘pensionnaires’, or guests; and 21 ‘sociétaires honoraires. honorary members) take part in the show: Éric Génovèse, Denis Podalydès, Elsa Lepoivre, Loïc Corbery, Gaël Kamilindi, Élissa Alloula and Séphora Pondi. The text of the performance, in fact, is also by Rodrigues, based on the tragedy of Euripides.

The Portuguese director links ancient Greece (the work takes place immediately after the Trojan War) with our days. An actress rehearses ‘Hécuba’, by Euripideswhere he plays the titular role. In this play Priam’s widow, who has lost everything – her husband and almost all of her children, her throne and her freedom – demands justice. The reality of the actress who plays her is that her autistic son has been a victim of abuse, a situation that she condemns and denounces. The essays overlap with a judicial investigation and foster a game between the tragedy of myth and that of reality, between the game of theater and that of justice.

Tiago Rodrigues refers to this ‘superposition’ and calls it “writing next to or between the lines of Euripides.” “We always return to Greek tragedies – continues the Portuguese director – asking ourselves questions like: ‘What meaning do they have today?’ ‘How can they keep talking to us? or are they really timeless?’. I prefer to ask the reverse question: Does our world still make sense seen through the lens of Greek tragedy? Are we still the human species that Euripides spoke of? Can we use his theater as a magnifying glass to evoke the current world – even if it is seen differently – and reaffirm convictions or make discoveries? »

Rodrigues assures that “the theater serves my life more than my life serves the theater,” and explains that he was inspired for this show by “a media case of abuse of autistic children admitted to an institution.” To define the framework, I was inspired by journalistic articles about this case, as well as broader research on how we, as a human society defending democratic values, continue to be negligent and powerless in the face of the violation of the fundamental rights of vulnerable people, since whether they are autistic, disabled or simply elderly. And in Euripides’ ‘Hecuba’ the question of justice is closely linked to the question of vulnerability.

The actors have actively participated in the creation of the show, he explains. «The text of Euripides is completed with the reading of the members of the Troupe. The reading is immediately skewed by points of view, a fictional setting, and even the desire to create a ‘based on’ show. All my theater is inspired by a primordial gesture, that of reading: an epic, a play, a novel, a newspaper article, an archive or even a text message.