Sentinelles - Athénée

Text, direction and set design by Jean-François Sivadier

With Vincent Guédon, Julien Romelard, Samy Zerrouki

Running time 2h20

As dissimilar as they are complementary, they support and clash with one another in a delicate balancing act. Through excerpts of Bach, Chopin and Shostakovich, they confront each other tenderly on the terrain of ideas and interpretation. Carried by three remarkable actors, this sensitive, funny and moving odyssey reveals the secret aspirations that jostle in the heart of every artist.

Sentinelles, written and conceived for three actors, tells the story of three virtuoso pianists who meet in their adolescence and become, overnight, inseparable. Admitted to a prestigious music school, they spend three years there before entering an international piano competition, at the end of which, for more or less mysterious reasons, they find themselves separated for good.

As dissimilar as they are complementary, each of the three admires in the other two what he lacks, and the three men support and clash with one another in a delicate balancing act, between their bonds of friendship and their fundamental differences regarding their relationship to the world and to the way of practising their art. The agreements and disagreements of the trio trace an initiatory path, at the end of which each has an appointment with himself.

A story serving as a pretext to examine the contrary winds and violent currents that may clash, harmonise or merge in the secret relationship each artist maintains with the world...

Sentinelles by Jean-François Sivadier is published by Les Solitaires Intempestifs (2021).