God died for our sins is intended to be a reflection on faith and the multiple beliefs that proliferate within our society. It is a show that seeks to understand the quest for meaning and the need for sacredness of people who believe and more particularly "neo-believers".
It is supported by the company Les Corps Vagabonds, created in 2012 by Liza Machover and Flavien Bellec, both actors and directors. For this creation, directed by Liza Machover , the company focuses its work on the mode of the laboratory and offers us a show made up of snippets of research, discussions, religious songs and prayers experienced by the four actresses (Anne Duverneuil, Naïs El Fassi, Élise Fourneau and Manon Rey). A spectacle that, in the context of religious tensions that we know, can only encourage us to reflect.
Liza Machover's approach was born from the conversion of "a twenty-year-old roommate and follower of smoky parties" to Judaism – this is what the synopsis on the back of the flyer tells us. "I wanted to look for meaning too. With four actresses, we sought, like her, to believe.Knowing the origin of this approach is essential to understand how the dramaturgy of the show is articulated. We are not dealing with a linear narrative but with jerky paintings, interspersed with sound recordings and video extracts, which are part of a global research on the theme of faith.
But then, what do we learn from faith? What does the show tell us or teach us about belief, since this is the heart of the reflection? The title is reminiscent of the famous Nietzschean formula ("God is dead") used by the author in Le Gai savoir. This death of God is the result of a transformation of society (industrialization in Nietzsche's time, globalization and overconsumption today), of a disappearance of old values in favor of new ones. As Dostoevsky writes so well in The Brothers Karamazov: "If God does not exist, then everything is permissible.This "whole" we are talking about is abuse, extremism, the will to human power that drives the destruction of the environment and civilization. To believe, to have faith, would it not also be a way to control oneself, to curb one's impulses, even to lead one's existence? It is, at least, to admit for oneself that there is a higher force and that we are not, as men, the masters of the universe. Doesn't it be said that one "puts one's life in the hands of God"?
Paradoxically, the very term of belief has evolved over time and has changed into a kind of "catch-all folder" where we store our best superstitions. The troupe of the Vagabond Corps has understood this well and lets us hear, not without humor, its list of beliefs from the modern world.
The structure of the show brilliantly reveals the underlying reflection, since it plunges us sometimes into a hyperrealistic universe, with contemporary sounds, sometimes into a more dreamlike, more mystical universe, where we seek God, where we go astray, where we return. In the first part, we follow four sisters gathered on the occasion of the birthday of the youngest of them. Left to themselves, supporters of alcoholic evenings (symbol of our society in need of landmarks), they struggle to find their place and express their feelings. In the second part, we witness a series of choreographies, songs, prayers uttered by sisters (this time, religious) and whose journey of faith is far from obvious. The costumes and scenography lend themselves to the game and evolve over the course of the show, leaving little by little a bare stage, refined and costumes of great sobriety: a successful passage from the profane to the sacred. Also to salute the very beautiful performance of the four actresses, whose work is impressive (the show is physical) and whose energy never decreases.
It is, in short, a show that calls for rethinking the fundamentals of the sacred, its etymology, its meaning because this is perhaps where the meaning lies. What is sacred today, what is important to us? Perhaps God did not die, but He simply transformed?
A work to follow from October 22 to November 2, 2018 during workshops with the public in Regnéville-sur-Mer (50). More information on the company's website.
