(Communiqué N°10)
by Samuel Gallet
Translated and Directed by Rob Melrose
Saturday, May 26th, 4pm @ Z Space
Featuring…Bobak Bakhtiari*, Paul Gerrior, Ponder Goddard, Rami Margron, Robert Page, Jessa Berkner, Cole Smith*, and Wiley Strasser
* indicates AEA
…built like a puzzle, and set in a slightly futuristic megalopolis surrounded by a wasteland where refugees and rebels seek refuge, Gallet’s play is neither strictly realistic, nor a thriller, nor a hallucinated vision of the future, but all three simultaneously…
In a slightly futuristic megalopolis, surrounded by a wasteland where refugees and rebels seek refuge, violence has broken out. A young man was killed in a parking lot by a security guard who is now on the run, while the brother of the victim does not want the crime to be left unpunished.
Built like a puzzle, Gallet’s play is neither a strictly realistic piece, nor a thriller, nor a hallucinated vision, but all three at the same time. His complex characters seek to take control over written destinies, to act on their lives without succumbing to the weight of the past, or the constraints imposed by society.
Damien, the security guard, is just as lost as Anne, the rebel, or as the eerie band of child warriors whose jokes punctuate the dangerous course of events—including riots, rebellion, and resistance.
In the words of the enigmatic figure of the old man: “It is not the dead who must be avenged, but the living, who remain, and that the dead regret.”
Samuel Gallet
Born in 1981, Samuel Gallet graduated from the Creative Writing Department of the ENSATT school in 2003, after studying literature and theater in Paris. He is a member of the “Cooperative d’ecriture”, a group founded by thirteen playwrights, under the impulsion of Fabrice Melquiot. In 2007, he joined the “Third Bureau”, a new initiative bringing together authors, dramaturgs, and patrons around new theatrical writing. In 2008, he was in residency at the CEAD in Montreal. In 2008-2009, Samuel was the author in residency at the Lardenois theater company. His plays have been staged by Philippe Delaigue, Marie-Pierre Bésanger, William Delaveau, Laurence Such, Celine Dely, Frédéric Andrau, Kheireddine Lardjam, and Oswald by night, his rock poem, has become a concert animated by Baptiste Tanne and Melissa Acchiardi. Encore un jour sans made it to final round of the Grand Prix de Litterature Dramatique, in 2009, and is the subject of two stagings for the 2011-2012 season.
Three of his plays have been broadcasted on the France Culture radio station. Communique #10 is the recipient of the Lyon’s Theatre Days in 2010, and will be staged by Jean-Philippe Albizzati. In July 2010, he participated in the International Summer Workshop in Barcelona (organized by the Sala Beckett) in which he wrote Fissures, translated into Catalan. He is currently working on Les enfants atomiques, a piece that he will bring to the stage at the Theatre du Préau de Vire (Normandy) in May 2012. Autopsie du Gibier (2006), Encore un jour sans (2007), Communiqué n°10 (2011) have all been published by Editions 34. samuelgallet.theatre-contemporain.net
Rob Melrose
is the Artistic Director and co-founder of The Cutting Ball Theater where he has directed The Tempest, Lady Grey, The Bald Soprano, Victims of Duty, Bone to Pick & Diadem (world premiere), Endgame, Krapp’s Last Tape, The Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth, As You Like It, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, and Roberto Zucco, among others, and has translated No Exit, Woyzeck, Pelleas & Melisande, The Bald Soprano, and Ubu Roi. He has directed at The Guthrie Theater: Happy Days, Pen; Magic Theatre: An Accident (world premiere); PlayMakers Rep: Happy Days; Black Box Theater: The Creature (world premiere – BATCC Award for direction); Actors’ Collective: Hedda Gabler; Alias Stage: Creditors; Crowded Fire: The Train Play; C.A.F.E.: Chain Reactions; Perishable Theatre: All Spoken by a Shining Creature (world premiere). He has an M.F.A. in directing from the Yale School of Drama and a B.A. in English and Theater from Princeton University and is a recipient of the NEA / TCG Career Development Program award for directors. In 2010, he was the Public Theater’s artist-in-residence at Stanford University, and directed a production of Troilus & Cressida. In 2012, he will be directing Troilus & Cressida at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Association with the Public Theater and the Acting Company’s production of Julius Caesar at the Guthrie Theater.
