© Agnès Mellon
© Agnès Mellon
© Agnès Mellon

Émilie Charriot (CH)

King Kong Théorie

  • 95’
  • G Hearing loops
  • E Partially-sighted spectators welcome

Mise en scène: Émilie Charriot. Interprétation: Julia Perazzini, Géraldine Chollet. Regard dramaturgique: Igor Cardellini. Regards extérieurs: Piera Honegger, Delphine Rosay. Création lumières et régie: Yan Godat. Film et collaboration artistique: Valérianne Poidevin. Photos : Philippe Weissbrodt. Administration et production: Virginie Lauwerier. Comptabilité: Christèle Fürbringer. Production: Cie Émilie Charriot. Coproduction: Arsenic, Lausanne. Soutiens: Ville de Lausanne, Loterie Romande, Fondation Jan Michalski pour la littérature et l’écriture, Fondation Émilie Gourd, Ernst Göhner Stiftung, Fondation Nestlé pour l’Art, Corodis, Pro Helvetia – Fondation suisse pour la culture, Fondation suisse des artistes interprètes.

Site web de la compagnie

A dancer, an actress, a naked stage. Emilie Charriot adapts Virginie Despentes without artifice nor vehemence. More than a feminist manifesto, King Kong Théorie is the story of an emancipation, the affirmation of a freedom. The story of a person who intends on standing strong, whatever may happen. Three years after its premiere at the Arsenic, Emilie Charriot reprises her adaptation of Virginie Despentes’ literary sucker punch. With a raw yet masterful use of language, the author recounts her rape and her experience as a sex worker. Simple but never simplistic, the staging underlines the power of the text, its paradoxes and its complexities, in order to better highlight its universal quality. Behind the militant language, the words of the author – but especially those of the person – shine through.
 
Before graduating from the Manufacture in 2012, Emilie Charriot (1984) was a self-taught theatre practitioner, mostly staging authors from Eastern Europe. In Switzerland, she performed under the direction of Christian Geffroy Schlittler, Oscar Gómez Mata, Massimo Furlan and Jean-Louis Hourdin. She directed King Kong Théorie (2014) after Virginie Despentes and Ivanov (2016) after Chekhov at Arsenic. In 2017, she directed Le Zoophile by Antoine Jaccoud and Passion Simple by Annie Ernaux at the Théâtre de Vidy. Her theatre walks the knife-edge of moral laws, and is shot through with tenderness and transgression. It tackles exposition and affirmation head-on, beginning with the affirmation of the self and of being a woman – stances which are comfortable yet constantly called into question.