L'effet de Serge

Founded in 2003 by Philippe Quesne, a set designer who trained at the Arts décoratifs school in Paris and who has extensive experience in theatre, opera and contemporary art exhibits, Vivarium Studio is resolutely focussed on the living as it pursues its ongoing observation of the behaviour of that strange social animal, the human being. With Quesne as artistic director, the group consists of a small core of diligent accomplices – five men, one woman and a dog. They create hybrid works, theatrical contraptions that obscure the boundaries between theatre and performance. In diverse environments, the members of the group compose a sort of tableau vivant onstage, erasing the tidy contours of character or simulating a performative drama developed in situ (such as D’après nature, 2006), where the banality of reality reveals its unsettling strangeness. From its first presentation, La démangeaison des ailes (2003), a variegated piece that explored the desire for flight and the danger of falling, to the edgy “ecological fable” D’après nature, which takes place in a futuristic terrarium, and then on to L’effet de Serge, the company has consistently sketched delicate portraits of the human beast. Never heroic, these humans live their lives in low-key fashion, in small poetic depictions of daily life and in the simple joy of being together. The plays are a tribute to humans and their creativity, as well as stylish, innovative presentations.