Theatre de la Ville to Bring Albert Camus' STATE OF SIEGE to BAM

BAM presents Albert Camus' rarely-staged but increasingly relevant political allegory State of Siege in a production that Le Monde called "beautifully staged and well thought, bending towards tragic grotesque," directed by Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota, artistic director of Théâtre de la Ville, Paris.

The production will run November 2-4, 2017 at BAM's Howard Gilman Opera House (30 Lafayette Ave).

Camus wrote the play in 1948, when Europe lay in post-war rubble. In State of Siege, a symbolic character named "The Plague" arrives in town after a catastrophic event and gradually assumes totalitarian power. Demarcy-Mota first staged a Camus play (Caligula) with his high-school classmates in response to a 1986 student protest. With the current resurgence of the extreme right in Europe, he feels the need to address the question of freedom and its existential ramifications, and returns once again to Camus-one of the deepest thinkers in modern literature. Demarcy-Mota already demonstrated his visual flair for staging modern classics in two well-received previous BAM engagements: Six Characters in Search of an Author (Next Wave 2014) and Rhinoceros (Next Wave 2012). His staging of State of Siege is dominated by two-tiered scaffoldings, giant video screens, chiaroscuro lighting, and sound effects, intensifying both the ominous threat and the triumph of human spirit.

IF YOU GO:

STATE OF SIEGE
Théâtre de la Ville, Paris
By Albert Camus
Directed by Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota

Artistic collaborator Christophe Lemaire
Set design by Yves Collet
Lighting design by Yves Collet & Christophe Lemaire
Sound design by David Lesser
Costume design by Fanny Brouste
Video design by Mike Guermyet

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House (30 Lafayette Ave)
Nov 2-4 at 7:30pm
Tickets start at $25

In French with English titles

Talk: On Camus and Totalitarianism
With Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota
Nov 3 at 6pm
Wendy's Subway Reading Room, BAM Fisher (Sharp Lower Lobby), 321 Ashland Pl
Free

Photo Credit: Jean Louis Fernandez

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