The company La Cordonnerie has made the association on stage of music, acting and film their signature. The audience follows the story through a film that is screened above the actor-musicians who interpret the score and create the soundtrack for the film.
“This idea sprang from our desire to make short films to present on stage” recalls Samuel Hercule who founded the company in 1997 before Métilde Weyergans, co-director of the company, joined him in 2003. Both trained as actors, they also work in collaboration with the musician Timothée Jolly. Music is not considered by the company to be a simple illustration through sound of the action on screen. It has the power to create distortion or send the audience into another dimension, like that of the flash-back. Samuel Hercule and Métilde Weyergans are savvy at pointing out the dysfunctions and flaws of our society by re-appropriating famous fairy tales or classical works, whether they draw their inspiration from Snow White as they did for their new and current creation: “Snow White or the Fall of the Berlin Wall”, or Shakespeare for their “(Super) Hamlet”. « When you work with a well-known piece of work, the audience has preconceived idea of what they are going to see. What we enjoy doing is shape that raw material and question what is topical about it, like “Hansel and Gretel” and the place of elderly people in our society today» adds Samuel Hercule. One of the strengths of their work is how they bring humor into it. Sometimes edgy, it works with the distortion and distance from the original work created by the dramatic writing of the company and the sound effects on stage.
Never gratuitous, it leads the audience to think about the world in which we live.