TD Berlin: ATTEMPT TO CAPTURE A PLACE IN PARIS

On October 18, 1974, the Parisian avant-garde author Georges Perec went to Place St. Sulpice. His plan: to spend a day writing down everything that happens around him; all the everyday things that escape attention, in other words "what happens when nothing happens except time, people, cars and clouds".

Car buses cross the square, they are full, empty or even "quite empty". Men, women and children eat cupcakes, read while walking, carry clothes rails, boards and architectural models. The Japanese emperor and his escort drive past. Pigeons fly up and circle the square, the weather changes, as does the author's mood.Perec's text is many things: a meticulous protocol, a list of astonishing miniature events, an exercise in "value-free perception", but of course also a punchline of conscious literature and slapstick with biting humor. And alongside the "purely objective", the recording subject also becomes increasingly visible: Georges Perec, 38 years old, eccentric author with alternating curves of excitement and exhaustion. And in some moments it seems as if his personal story is also reflected in the falling dusk, in the silhouettes scurrying past and suddenly threatening, dream-like scenes: that of a child who lost both parents in the Second World War.Christian Fries, actor, director and author himself, puts himself in the shoes of Georges Perec, who seeks the objective and finds the subjective. He performatively "inscribes" what Perec describes on paper into the audience's inner world of imagination.

"TRYING TO FIND A PLACE IN PARIS"

Christian Fries after Georges Perec

06 - 08 February 2025 at 20:00