SAIGON

Like the actors that portray them, the characters of SAIGON are French, Vietnamese, or French of Vietnamese descent. Whatever their age, they share landscapes, faces, songs, and a language that, for some of them, no longer exist but in their memories. The play takes place in a location subject to the same nostalgia: a restaurant stuck in a space-time somewhere between the France of today and the Saigon of the '50s, where the characters have become used to bumping into one another, meeting for lunch, singing, drinking, dancing, loving, and trying to celebrate life in spite of everything. The result of a long work of immersion in both France and Vietnam, this polyphonic story invents the voices of men and women marked by history and geography. They all carry within themselves the marks left by the changes of our world. SAIGON is a wounded land, there's always someone missing, someone to mourn, and it is the journey of the tears thus shed that guides us. With the help of those eleven actors, Caroline Guiela Nguyen conjures up a vision of France as it exists beyond the limits it has been given, beyond its own borders.

Direction Caroline Guiela Nguyen
Artistic collaboration Claire Calvi
Dramaturgy Jérémie Scheidler, Manon Worms
Translation Duc Duy Nguyen, Thi Thanh Thu Tô
Stage design Alice Duchange
Lights Jérémie Papin
Sound Antoine Richard
Costumes Benjamin Moreau

With Caroline Arrouas, Dan Artus, Adeline Guillot, Thi Truc Ly Huynh, Hoàng Son Lê, Phú Hau Nguyen, My Chau Nguyen Thi, Pierric Plathier, Thi Thanh Thu Tô, Anh Tran Nghia, Hiep Tran Nghia

Production les Hommes Approximatifs
Co-production Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, La Comédie de Valence Centre dramatique national Drôme-Ardèche, MC2 : Grenoble, Festival d'Avignon, Centre dramatique national de Normandie-Rouen, Théâtre national de Strasbourg, Théâtre Olympia Centre dramatique national de Tours, Comédie de Reims, Théâtre national de Bretagne, Théâtre du Beauvaisis Scène nationale de l'Oise en préfiguration, Théâtre de La Croix-Rousse (Lyon)
With the support of Région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Conseil départemental de la Drôme, Institut français - programme Théâtre export, Institut français du Vietnam, Université de théâtre et de cinéma de Hô Chi Minh-Ville, Artcena, and for the 71st edition of the Festival d'Avignon : Adami, Spedidam
With the help of Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe for the construction of decors, La Chartreuse de Villeneuve lez Avignon
With the participation of Jeune théâtre national
In partnership with France Médias Monde