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Patron of the Avignon Festival, playwright, director, actor, poet, he fights to open the theater to all and teaches him in prison. He also knows how to charm the powerful to get grants. Portrait of a man of paradoxes
Olivier Py walks like a penguin. Arms clinging to the body, with small steps, the director of the Festival d'Avignon enters prison, the mine anxious. This May 16, he runs a theater workshop at the penitentiary center of Avignon-Le Pontet. Five inmates are present: Youssef, Nordine, Christian (first name was changed) Philippe and Redwane. "The great Persian army is gone to Greece …" It is launched. On the program, The Persians, Aeschylus, translated by Py.
Queen Atossa, biceps protruding and shaved head, gives off a surprising power of play, including when she listens. "We recognize an actor by the force of his silences", encourages Olivier Py. Redwane walks away and crouches down the gym. "He plays Xerxes, Youssef whispers. He is living in his character. A quarter of an hour later, it's his turn. He arrives barefoot and cries to twist his eardrums: "My heart deep inside me screams in despair. His hands shake on his face, he kneels, opens his shirt with a violent gesture and, suddenly, tears his shirt. Redwane gave it all.
Sophocles with detainees
On July 18, 19 and 20, for the Festival, they will play another tragedy, Antigone, by Sophocles. Christian / the queen, who repeats an hour every day in his cell, confides that in normal times he stutters or eats his words. "The theater, explains Nordine, allows us to evacuate tensions and frustrations. "" One learns emotions ", Youssef loose. And all say it: "Olivier Py does not consider us as prisoners.
The idea for the workshop comes from his badistant, Véronique Matignon. She pushed him, he caught the game Man of many fights (war in Bosnia, undocumented, LGBT cause …), Py is also indignant about prison conditions. As soon as he speaks of it, his brown-green eyes fog up.
"It was a very beautiful repetition, he estimates, …
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