Inhabiting the silent language - Truth is always concrete

I recently discovered the article in your newspaper that Kathrine Nedrejord wrote concerning my theatrical creation  Étincelles  at the Comédie-Française. I was surprised by the animosity of certain attacks directed against me, as well as by several misinterpretations of the work. I do not usually respond to critics; however, in this case, I feel compelled to do so. I cannot remain silent.

For fifteen years I have been deeply engaged with the work of Jon Fosse: I have directed many of his plays, wrote a book of interviews with him and organized many workshops and events devoted to his writing – including at the Centre National du Livre, at the Musée d’Orsay, and at the Vieux Colombier.

Fosse's silent language

I would not want Norwegian readers to be misinformed. The efforts required to make a work known, and to bring it to the stage are demanding and ongoing. The fact that Jon Fosse's work has been presented for the first time at the Comédie-Française is, in itself, a major event.

With this creation, I have also introduced some of his unpublished texts and poems. More than 5500 spectators attended; every performance was sold out every day, and I invite you to read the overwhelmingly positive France press coverage. I believe my work has helped to expand Jon Fosse's audience in France. While I fully accept the right to criticism, I struggle to understand the intent behind this article, directed at Norway (the author's country, which I love so much), which seems to me, at the very least, inappropriate and counterproductive.

Asseting that I don't respect pauses and silences is completely absurd and untrue. I worked meticulously with the actors on the musical structure of the play: every pause is literally and rigorously respected. We also shaped the sound design, so that the pauses could resonate, constantly exploring how they could speak.

Throughout the entire process, I encouraged the actors to inhabit the «silent language» – to hear and respond to silences, to make them interact. Those familiar with my work know how deeply I am drawn to the writing itself, to what I often call the «white ink» that flows from a great text, a great writing. Many spectators discovered Jon Fosse with Étincelles and were deeply moved by the delicacy, the silences and the gentleness of the performance. The actors did not attempt to «reproduce everyday language,» but adhered precisely to the script, reinventing it with surprise and wonder. That, to me, is what it means for a work to be alive – which may, perhaps, be where the misunderstanding lies.

Claude Régy

There is, I think, a more fundamental issue: Jon Fosse is too often reduced to Claude Régy.

With all due respect – and I was myself a great admirer of Régy's productions – Jon Fosse is not Claude Régy. It is moreover surprising that Kathrine Nedrejord, by her own admission, has never seen Régy’s productions of Fosse's plays — even though she claims that Jon Fosse is at his best when directed by Claude Régy. And what of Patrice Chéreau, Thomas Ostermeier, Falk Richter, Bob Wilson, and many others who have offered different and complementary interpretations of Jon Fosse? Why insist that his plays have to be staged this way and not another? Who decided that?

Furthermore, Jon Fosse’s theater – whether one likes it or not – is concrete and embodied. He himself often quotes Hegel’s phrase: «Die Wahrheit ist immer konkret.» («Truth is always concrete»). Fosse’s theater lives contradictions, in the interstices, between life and death, presence and absence, dream and waking, realism and abstraction… it is this and that, one and another… Everything depends on a fragile equilibrium, constantly reinvented – an equilibrium we sought and continue to seek on stage. French critics have praised my work precisely for this: for its silences and whiteness, for its musicality of language, far removed from any realism I have never been concerned with.

Montages

Claiming that «there is no clear link between the texts» is disingenuous. Lines reappear from one text to another; each poem deeply echoes what precedes and follows. To call this a «collage» completely diminishes what I have undertaken – namely, to offer a perspective on Fosse’s writing through several short pieces. I do not practice collage, but montage and creation of resonance, which is entirely different. The texts respond to one another; they are all situated at existential thresholds where each character hesitates to leave or remain. To speak of collage is to ignore the dramaturgical coherence, carefully built, and discussed by myself and Jon Fosse in the program – where we evoke precisely these «invisible links» between people and between the pieces. Jon Fosse himself approved this edit: he was, in fact, delighted that these short pieces were brought together for the first time.

In recent weeks, many spectators have shared their reactions: one told me she had cried «luminous tears.» A celebrated french writer wrote to me that he was «still haunted by the slow and calm brilliance of what unfolded on stage.» Another said wrote the performance allowed him to «reconnect with his dead», calling it «an act of resistance.» Just today, a spectator wrote to me: «You bring about the encounter of solitudes between beings and within themselves with a finesse of listening, a poetic fidelity, and a subtle palette of nuances — sound, body, light, shadow, silence, voice — that partake of ritual and art, in other words, of the sacred, always embodied outside the walls of the temple in nothingness, a glance, a breath between two words.»

All of this stands in stark contrasts to the terms Kathrine Nedrejord uses to describe my work: «contemporary social drama», «melodramatic style», «friction between the text and the interpretation», or «blandness in the acting»...

Furthermore, the «space of reflection and question» that Kathrine Nedrejord asks for is, for me, essential – it is also a space of poetry and wonder. As Jon Fosse himself told me: «I always look with wonder a world that is being created». I share that view entirely. My intention has always been to reveal the poetic dimension of his work – especially by introducing his poems, still little known in France. For me, Jon Fosse is one of the great poets of our time.

And I deeply believe that rather than undermining such efforts, it would be more constructive to recognize and support initiatives that bring his work to light, convey its meaning and essence, and sustain the perseverance and courage required to defend poetry today. With a critical mind, yes, but with openness and consistency.

Best regards,

Gabriel Dufay.