This play by Laurent Gaudé is a monologue in which Alexander the Great, who is about to die, tells the story of his life, his conquests, his mystical encounters with a blue tiger and his final days. He directly addresses death – and thereby the audience – as his final companion. The text chillingly echoes contemporary events: it is the story of vain imperialism and of subjugated lands left in ashes with no consideration for the local people.
The first aim of this workshop is to explore ways of translating the play for the stage into English by working with two actors (one anglophone and one francophone) and a musician. The workshop will also question the arrogance and the paternalism of the character. The text will be shared between the two actors, a man and a woman, in order to blur gender performance and to undermine clichés that we have inherited and developed from ancient Greece and Rome.
After two weeks of rehearsals, the results of the workshop will be presented in a bilingual performance. Anyone interested in the process is also welcome to come, watch and discuss with the creative team on any day during rehearsals (6-11 April and 16-19 April). To attend rehearsals, please email estelle.baudou@classics.ox.ac.uk 12 hours in advance.
Creative team
Estelle Baudou – translator and director
James Aldred – actor
Fanny Bloc – actor
Alex Silverman – composer and musician
Claire Barnes – translator and movement practice
Zoë Jennings – translator and history advisor
Cécile Dudouyt – translation advisor
This project is supported by the APGRD (Archive of Performance of Greek and Roman Drama, Faculty of Classics, University of Oxford) and the MFO (Maison Française d’Oxford). It is also part of Estelle Baudou’s Marie Sklodowska Curie Fellowship (2019-2021: this project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 839770).