Vertige

Step into one of the great American novels of the interwar years, reimagined as an immersive experience. Twelve actresses embody a multitude of destinies in this sprawling “city-play”, carried by a century of music, from jazz to electronica. Move freely through the heart of a living fresco and become explorers of a world in constant transformation. Unsettling.

A vast modern fresco first published in 1925, Manhattan Transfer depicts the first megalopolis, through a profusion of stories and characters of different origins.

In a city marked by inequality, where the breath of the second industrial revolution accelerates the dehumanisation of people, we encounter, among others, the actress Ellen Thatcher, the journalist Jimmy Herf, the French anarchist Congo Jake and the lawyer George Baldwin.

To convey as faithfully as possible the simultaneity of these journeys, director Léonard Matton immerses 12 actresses in an immersive setup, spread across several stages. As in a “choose your own adventure” book, the audience is free to move about.

This immersion is also musical, with live jazz, and visual, with video mapping projected onto shifting sets, a stylised vision of New York's vertical architecture.

Manhattan Transfer blends songs, choreography, theatre scenes, silent films and artificial intelligence, thus drawing threads from one century to the next.

The play draws on three technologies popularised at the time (the loudspeaker, the telephone and the cinema) to explore contemporary issues, notably by setting them against the use of generative text and voice AI.

An additional immersive dimension, both dizzying and sweeping, for a play as modern and sprawling as its model.

With his association Emersiøn, Léonard Matton has already created two immersive theatre productions: Helsingør, château d'Hamlet (2018) and Le Fléau, mesure pour mesure (2023).

For fifteen years he has translated, adapted and directed major theatrical works, both classical and contemporary: Molière, Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Georges Feydeau, Dea Loher, William Shakespeare and Ingmar Bergman.

Vincent Théval Duration: 2h45 with interval Category: Immersive live performance World premiere