Plus Ombre que l’Ombre – Music theatre (excerpt)
Ensemble S.I.C. Music Theatre Workshop – Georges Aperghis. Metz, France
Libretto: Emmanuel Reibel
Once, she amused herself by putting poems to sleep. The poems were happy to sleep. She would let them sleep for a long time, sometimes for her age. When she wanted to wake them up, the poems were still asleep. None were shy enough to wake up.
The night was dark, and it lit the night. She came to find me. I took her in my arms… slowly. I let my head rest on her shoulder… It was so heavy, my head, so heavy… probably because of the sleep of the poems. She had a strange little laugh, a laugh from some extinguished night I cannot name. The poems never woke up again.
I’ve dreamed so much… I’ve dreamed of you so much that it’s no longer time for me to wake up. I sleep standing, my body exposed to the appearances of life and love… I could touch your forehead and lips less than the lips and forehead of anyone who happens to pass by. I’ve dreamed of you so much, walked so much, spoken while lying with your ghost, that maybe there’s nothing left for me but to be a ghost among ghosts.
I would like to be… I would like to be… I would like to be that little insect that tickled you when I first met you. I would like to be a flea… that melts in a staircase where I would live with you. I would like to be! Without you, I am barely the gap between the stones of the next barricades. I love you as… I love you as… I love you like a seashell loves its sand. Someone will find it when the sun takes the shape of a bean that will begin to sprout like a stone showing its heart under the downpour. I love you, I’ve dreamed of you so much…
I carry from one shore to another the dismasted ships of your love. I sail toward an island where I would like to sleep with you. I’ve dreamed of you so much that it’s probably no longer time for me to wake up. Island, blue, like, love, talirphe, istphle, you, yteisse.
Once, she amused herself by putting poems to sleep. The poems were happy to sleep. When she wanted to wake them up, the poems were still asleep. None were shy enough to wake up. The poems never woke up again.
La soeur de N: – Music theatre (excerpt). Based on the Kafka’s “Journal”