THE FLIES LES MOUCHES BY JEAN PAUL SARTRE
Electra
Meena Rayann
Orestes
Samy Elkhatib
Clytemnestra/Fury
Fanny Dulin
Jupiter
Raul Fernandes
The Tutor
Juliet Dante
Aegisthus
David Furlong
The Woman/Fury
Soraya Spiers
High Priest/Fury
Christopher Runciman
The Anonymous Jonathan Brandt
Billy Boguard (Guitar) - Thomas Broda (Drums) - Leo Elso (Bass) Music by A RIOT IN HEAVEN
Director Assistant Director
David Furlong Paloma Jacob-Duvernet
Lighting Designer
Julien Bernard-Grau
Movement Director
Jennifer Kay
Original co-director
Kevin Rowntree
Original video creation Music Direction
Paco Esquire
Set Designer
Ninon Fandre
Resident Musical Director
Costume Designer
Sarah Habib
Stage Manager
Video Creators
Giuliana Pulcini Camille DufrĂŠnoy
Press Relation
Jason Greenberg
Leo Elso Emma Brahim
Chloe Nelkin Consulting Emma Williams
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The Flies is the show which put Exchange Theatre on the British theatre map ten years ago. Before this show, we were barely surviving through guerrilla theatre-making on the Fringe. This is the show that brought us a three-year creative residency at the French Institute, and subsequently our own studio-space in London Bridge, where we are still based. We passed our ten year anniversary two years ago, just when the Brexit vote happened, and when we got our first of three Offies nominations. It was a very polarized moment. It’s like being told both you’re welcome and you’re not in the same week. Now that we’re a more recognised company and becoming a charitable organisation, it seemed logical to revive this landmark show to celebrate our first decade, but also to take a stance on the current political climate. The Flies contains everything Exchange Theatre is about: it is a rare and major foreign play brought to the English audience, it’s multi-disciplinary mixing video artists, live musicians and non western theatre technics and its cast represent numerous nationalities and minorities. It’s all about the exchange at the core of the company. When we first produced the play ten years ago, it was right after our first experiment with a live guitarist incorporated in, but the idea was to use his music not just as transitions or score but playing like a character simultaneously with the actors The Flies is a play of rebellion, written by a young Jean-Paul Sartre against Nazi Occupation in France and this ode to freedom still rings today like a wake-up call. Eighty years later, far right populists are rising again promoting fear of the other, of any differences. Sartre’s play is so relevant. The Flies world is never very far from ours. In 1939, The Nazis and the French collaborationists spread their ideology like this. In 2009, the lies were about the weapons of mass destruction and in 2019, it’s about promoting isolation and closing borders in the name of the people. The mediums have changed but the propaganda and the struggle against it are both the same. Sartre’s existential philosophy is universal and timeless as it always questions the status quo, and it asks the eternal question of what it is to be free. The Flies has raised some of the most interesting questions have recently been heard in public debates: how do we represent diversity, gender-parity, equality or equity and disability on stage? All of these are at the centre of our practice and therefore almost all of them were faced in the creative process. It’s an amazing challenge to look at them with more maturity and responsibility. We’re excited to work with Chris Sonnex and David Ralf from the Bunker ,one of the most exciting and daring venues on the London fringe and to tackle all these subjects together .
D av i d Fur l on g , J un e 20 1 9
Born in Paris, Meena is best known for playing the role of Vala in Game Of Thrones. This role has won her an army of fans. Meena will soon share the screen with Anne Hathaway, Rebel Wilson and Alex Sharp in The Hustle on cinema release in May 2019. She also stars in multi award winning short film, No Love Lost, for which she was awarded Best Actress at the EuroFilm Festival.
Born in Bordeaux, Fanny Dulin trained at the Bridge Theatre Training Company. She is the executive director and producer of Exchange Theatre. Her latest credits include Noor a true story of Liberté (Tristan Bates), Eliante/Arsinoé in Misanthrope, Médée Khali, Et toi Ismene (Cockpit Theatre), The Doctor in Spite of Himself, A Family Affair / Un Air de Famille (Drayton Arms Theatre). She is also a voice over artist and director. .
A multilingual actor and voice artist, Juliet grew up in Brussels, trained at Drama Centre London and discovered clown work with Peta Lily. Her credits include tours in the UK, Europe, Hong Kong and Chile. As an associate artist of Pascal Theatre Company, her performances include Judith-Esther in The Dybbuk (New York Off Broadway revival 2010) and Joan in Pascal’s St Joan, which won her an award for Best Female in Performance at the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival 2015.
Soraya is a multilingual actress, producer and director. She trained at the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts. Credits include Thursday (Southwark Playhouse), The Penelopiad (Jackson’s Lane), Second Skin (Theatre 503), Baby Love (Tristan Bates) and the critically acclaimed one woman show Made Up (The Arts Theatre West End).
Samy has a French/Egyptian heritage. After attending Washington University and the Royal Central School of Speech, he graduated from Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in July 2018 where he performed in Welcome to Thebes, 5 Women Wearing the Same Dress, The Tempest, The Smoke of the Gods and Parlour Games. He also wrote, directed and acted in his own piece of Hip Hop theatre for his Masters’ thesis where he also performed his own rap.
Raul Fernandes was born in Mozambique and has roots from Portugal, India, Yemen and Greece. After being a pro skateboarder in his twenties, Raul joined the Serge Martin Theatre School in Geneva. He trained in the Jacques Lecoq method, and went on to work with acting coach Susan Batson in NYC. Since then, he has been on stage in plays such as Dangerous Liaisons, Don Juan, Holy Are You and A Lie of the Mind. He has a recurrent role on the TV series Banking District. Raul is now based in London.
David Furlong is the founder and artistic director of Exchange Theatre. Originally from Mauritius, he trained at the National Theatre of Chaillot. In France, he worked with Hans Peter Cloos, Deborah Warner and Michel Lopez. His latest theatre credits in London include Alceste in Misanthrope, Sganarelle in Don Juan (Theatre Lab), Macbeth in Macbeth (Cockpit) and David in the Great Experiment (Border Crossing). He also directed Break of Noon at the Finborough Theatre and The Doctor in Spite of Himself at the Drayton Arms, for which he was nominated for Best Director at the Offies.
A native of Australia, Chris trained at London’s Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Credits include Julian Assange in Gaga v Assange (Adelaide Fringe), the devlish Mr Wolf in Broke Britannia (Bridewell Theatre), and News Review (Canal Cafe ). Chris has a background in improvised comedy and early music, and is one half of the online comedy siblings Sarah & John. He can be next seen in La Rabita at the Festival Avignon-Off and in Shamima May at this year’s Melbourne Fringe Festival.
Born in Paris, Jonathan trained at the Bridge Theatre Training Company in London. His credits include Much Ado About Nothing, Neil Gwynn and The Learned Ladies. He also works regularly as a voice over artist. He also directed and produced Boris Vian’s The Empire Builders at the Hen and Chicken Theatre. He just finished writing A couple in one for Metamorphosis production performed by Off the Cliff Theatre.
Billy is a French singersongwriter living in London, who writes, plays and sings from the heart.
www.billyboguard.com
Freelance Drummer based in London, Thomas loves to explore the interaction between music and other arts form. Instagram @thomasbrodadrummer YouTube channel @ThomasBroda
Leo is a West End performer, Rock musician and composer. His first album, "Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense" will be out later this year. twitter @leoelso
Existentialism as a way of life Jean-Paul Sartre was born in Paris in 1905. He studied in Paris at the elite École Normale Supérieure, an institution of higher education which was the alma mater for several prominent French thinkers and intellectuals. In 1929 at the École Normale, he met Simone de Beauvoir, who studied at the Sorbonne and later went on to become a noted thinker, writer, and feminist. The two, it is documented, became inseparable and lifelong companions, initiating a romantic relationship, though they were not monogamous. Sartre graduated from the École Normale Supérieure in 1929 with a doctorate in philosophy and served as a conscript in the French Army from 1929 to 1931. German troops captured him in 1940 in Padoux, and he spent nine months as a prisoner of war — in Nancy and finally in Stalag 12D, Trier, where he wrote his first theatrical piece, Barionà, fils du tonnerre. Due to poor health (he claimed that his poor eyesight affected his balance) Sartre was released in April 1941. After coming back to Paris in May 1941, he participated in the founding of the underground group Socialisme et Liberté with other writers : Simone de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty. He then wrote Being and Nothingness, The Flies and No Exit, and also contributed to both legal and illegal literary magazines. After August 1944 and the liberation of Paris, he was a very active contributor of Combat, a newspaper created during the clandestine period by Albert Camus. When the war ended, Sartre established Modern Times continuing his political activism. He would draw on his war experiences for his great trilogy of n ovels, The Roads to Freedom. A resistant A second period as a politically engaged activist and intellectual. His 1948 work Dirty Hands in particular explored the problem of being both an intellectual at the same time as becoming "engaged" politically. He embraced communism, though never officially joining the Communist party, and took a prominent role in the struggle against French rule in Algeria. Sartre was the head of the Organization to Defend Iranian Political Prisoners from 1964 till the victory of the Islamic Revolution. He opposed the Vietnam War and organized a tribunal intended to expose alleged U.S. war crimes. Sartre went to Cuba in the '60s to meet Fidel Castro and Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Jean Paul Sartre refused the Nobel Prize In 1964, Sartre renounced literature in a witty and sardonic account of the first ten years of his life: « Words. literature, Sartre concluded, functioned as a bourgeois substitute for real commitment in the world. » In the same year he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, but he declined it, stating that " It
is not the same thing if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre or if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prize winner. A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form." In 1968, he took part in the student revolution, aged 63. He was arrested for civil disobedience. General De Gaulle intervened and pardoned him, commenting that "you don't arrest Voltaire." Sartre's physical condition deteriorated, partially due to the merciless pace of work (and the use of drugs which accompanied) he put himself through during the writing of the Critique and the last project of his life, He died April 15, 1980 in Paris from an oedema of the lung. His funeral was attended by 50,000 mourners.
“The painful secret of Kings and Gods is that men are free .” J e a n - P a u l S a rt re
Like the character, Jupiter which he played in the 2009’s production of The Flies, George Xander is immortal to us. This year.s production is dedicated to our dear friend.. He was a kind, generous, and unique gentleman, he was a charismatic and hard-working actor loved by so many people he had worked with, he was a great human being, beloved brother and uncle, he was a faithful friend and collaborator, we saw him at every one of the company's parties over a decade. He helped us with props, we helped him with contacts. He was fighting depression. He felt so alone. He is sorely missed.
Exchange Theatre would like to thank: Benedict Cooper, David, Holly, Ed, Chris and all the staff at The Bunker, James Buttling and Marcus Roche, Delphyne de Peretti, David Manson, Lisa Petitjean, Shazz Tohngodo, Kristina Vin, Emma Williams, Etienne Gravier, Camille Dufrénoy, Emma Brahim, Arun Hunjan and Karim Mhiri. Paco, Mabs, Nico and Dilan from a Riot in Heaven U2, Radiohead, Chuck Palahniuk. Vincent Castevert, Jason Greenberg, Blanche McIntyre, Jodi de Souza, Sam Rice and la compagnie Gérard Gérard Original cast: Pierre Becker, Miranda Colmans, Niall Costigan, Brett Foulser, Filippos Kanakaris Shani Perez, Adam Piercy, Kevin Rowntree, Sadao Ueda , George Xander and Aqil Zahid.
Exchange Theatre is an international cultural organisation established in 2006 in London in order to translate and produce unknown or rare international plays in English. With the use multilingualism and a strong imagery, the productions offer a true sensorial experience. Led by David Furlong and Fanny Dulin, the company translated and produced, for the first time on the off West End stages, plays from major French playwrights like Paul Claudel, Georges Feydeau, Jean-Paul Sartre and Xavier Durringer (London and off Broadway). Beside the professional company, their education department offers drama classes in French and also teaches French through drama in schools and nurseries across the UK. Their studio space is based in London Bridge at the heart of London. Exchange Theatre was resident company at the French Institute in London for two years. The work started as English adaptations then evolved towards a unique bilingual experiment. The response was very positive, moving from the site specific library to the CinÊ Lumiere auditorium. But it was noticed that the understanding is universal whatever the language. This body of work should be also seen by more people than the French community. Each year, the company produces a season of shows, where the professionals and amateurs share a theatre. In 2016, Moliere’s The Doctor In Spite of Himself was performed alternately in English and French by the same cast over four weeks and was critically acclaimed by both English and French press In 2017 and 2018, the production of Misanthrope was supported by The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Unity Theatre Trust and was nominated for Best Video and Best Production at the Off West End awards. 2019 is the 12th edition of the annual season.
Find us on www.exchangetheatre.com
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