LES PARTICULES ÉLÉMENTAIRES

MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ + JULIEN GOSSELIN, PARIS
Last summer a sensational thunderbolt jolted French theatre. The 26-year-old director Julien Gosselin had the temerity to bring to the stage Michel Houellebecq’s seminal novel. The result? An astounding performance. In a striking presentation delivered with imposing panache, ten flamboyant actors portray the emotional, sexual and existential bleakness of Western civilization. This brilliant theatrical panorama journeys from May 1968 to the near future. The actors are narrators, characters, commentators and musicians, creating and abolishing theatrical conventions with amazing fluidity. They catch the spectator in the very heart of the present, shifting from lyricism to irony, from the social to the philosophical, from the private to the universal. A revelation!