I like Glass’s piano… and the clouds floating by… over there. I also like the forest, the night that quivers and trembles, and the ocean deep. I like to think of the first human beings, in the depths of a dark cave, drawing their fears on the wall by the light of a flickering flame…

Regardless of how many times the 2917 metres separating the gods from men have been climbed. Regardless of the kerosene on the mists of Mount Olympus or the rotation of a world that hopes to see Chronos and his acolyte Ananké fall, the archaic myth remains, firmly ensconced, visceral.

With Phèdre, Jérémie Niel hopes to probe the intimate cavities of our founding values, deemed for the most part to be unshakeable. He points to their terrestrial meridian, questions their declinations, estimates the weight of an overexposed secular morality that resists its enigmatic contours.

To that end, an enclosed space is inhabited by quite the quartet: Hippolyte and his tainted naiveté, Thésée lost in the agency of treason, Phèdre, an icon of sin and a receptacle for the darkest urges, and Coryphée, symbol of the virtuous masses.

Inspired with an economy of words by the writings of Euripides, Seneca, Racine and Sarah Kane, the director revisits a key figure of Western drama. Layers of myth are distilled onstage: volatile words, moving sound textures, tightly sculpted lighting and the fragility of silence. Marie Brassard, Benoît Lachambre, Emmanuel Schwartz and Mani Soleymanlou collaborate in the experience, sealing the promise of a vibrant performance.