Tiago Rodrigues based his piece on the stories of aid workers in disaster areas. His pure, sincere approach makes for an intense, empathic experience of an extreme reality that most of us only know from the news.

Dans la mesure de l'impossible, ‘So far as to be impossible'… - this is how far the stories go of the Red Cross humanitarian aid workers that director Tiago Rodrigues spoke with to create his piece. It is also the length to which the aid workers will go to make a difference.

Rodrigues is known for his sincere, simple and poetic way of storytelling. Four actors directly address the audience, telling personal stories about experiences in the field in French, English and Portuguese (with subtitles). Their emotions, doubts and considerations illustrate the sharp divide between their mission and resignation, between their safe lives back home and the profound misery of the impossible world they work in.

The set and music are a marvel of simplicity, with subtle shifts very naturally altering their form and meaning. A staggeringly humane piece that hovers between two worlds, between living and surviving, between the possible and impossible...

"The proximity of suffering, danger and violence, but also of human dignity and resilience, gives them access to a way of reading the world that we’re incapable of." - Tiago Rodrigues

CREDITS

text Tiago Rodrigues
director Tiago Rodrigues
corrector English Thomas Resendes
stage design Laurent Junod, Wendy Tokuoka, Laura Fleury
music Gabriel Ferrandini
light design Rui Monteiro
sound Pedro Costa
artistic collaboration Magda Bizarro
costumes Magda Bizarro
assistent director Lisa Como, Renata Antonante

production Comédie de Genève
coproduction Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, Piccolo Teatro di Milano – Teatro d’Europa, Teatro Nacional D. Maria II, Équinoxe – scène nationale de Châteauroux, CSS Teatro stabile di innovazione del FVG – Udine, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Théâtre National de Bretagne-Rennes, Théâtre de Strasbourg – scène européenne, CDN Orléans, La Coursive Scène nationale de la Rochelle with support from CICR-Comité international de la Croix-Rouge, MSF-Médecins sans frontières