The director Philippe Adrien died on Wednesday, September 15, at the age of 81, announced the Théâtre de la Tempête, which he directed for a long time.
“The Théâtre de la Tempête team learned with sadness of the death of Philippe Adrien (December 19, 1939 – September 15, 2021), a director who was welcomed from 1985 into permanent residence at the Théâtre de la Tempête, before see entrusting the management of this emblematic place of the Cartoucherie between 1996 and 2016 ”, according to a press release from the theater located in the Bois de Vincennes, in eastern Paris.
With his reference authors – Molière, Claudel and these last years Tchekhov -, Philippe Adrien, successor of Antoine Vitez and faithful of Ariane Mnouchkine, liked to draw a portrait of humanity “As close to garbage cans as to eternity”.
Taste for dramatic poetry
By choosing great authors like Brecht, Beckett or Claudel, he reveals his taste for dramatic poetry with strong philosophical, religious or political accents. But he is also interested in contemporary authors like Copi, Armando Llamas, Hervé Guibert or Enzo Cormann.
His relations with Africa led Philippe Adrien to go up to the Théâtre de la Colline Kinkali by Arnaud Bédouet, who in 1997 received the Molière for best creative show. He tackles the question of colonization with Meledouman by Philippe Auger, then The Conrad Project, adaptation of the new An outpost of progress and, in 2014, Boesman and Lena by South African author Athol Fugard.
In the early 2000s, he worked with Bruno Netter, a blind actor, and the Company of the Third Eye, made up of disabled and able-bodied actors, a collaboration that gave an unprecedented resonance to works like Imaginary sick by Molière in 2001 then The trial by Kafka, Oedipus king by Sophocles, Don Quixote by Cervantes and The chairs by Ionesco.
Professor at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art between 1989 and 2003, Philippe Adrien also directed at the Comédie-Française.
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