acteurs

The Actors and their Characters

home, introduction (français, English), program, acteurs, actors, crew, équipe, article: Comme un poisson hors de l'eau, un peu d'histoire, a little history, Arts First-Harvard Arts Festival 2005, Festival d'Avignon, article sur Avignon, poster, "Actualité de l'Echange", Claudel Society

Jess Burkle is a third year undergraduate at Harvard University where he concentrates in French with an added emphasis in French theater. Since childhood, Jess has been drawn to the theatre and has played such grand roles as the title role in Camus's Caligula and Judge Brack in Ibsen's Hedda Gabler. After graduating from the University, he hopes to pursue a carrier as a professional actor. Now, after having been inspired by the study of P. Claudel and other major works of the 20^th-century French theater, he has decided to direct productions of Ionesco's Rhinocéros and Jarry's Ubu roi in the coming year.

About his character: Louis Laine is the child who lives in the mind of all of us&emdash;he is that innocence and that naiveté that one loses in the journey to adulthood. But that does not mean a lack of complexity: someone who knows his desires so well and expresses himself so poetically must have an enormous depth within himself. (J. Burkle)

Amanda Gann is a third year Literature major at Harvard University. She specializes in French and is currently working on the notion of the tragic in modern drama. Next year she will continue her studies at the University of Paris while she prepares a senior thesis on Jean Genet.

About her character: To play her is to feel all, know all, and say all in a voice that is at once cry and murmur. (A. Gann)

James Lawler James Lawler makes his stage debut as Thomas Pollock Nageoire in G.C. Kessous' interpretation of Paul Claudel's L'Echange. James is a French concentrator at Harvard University. He has written several films, a musical, and has directed numerous short films. He would like to thank Ms. Kessous and the rest of the company for their patience.

About his character: Playing Thomas Pollock Nageoire was a challenge&emdash;the character borders on evil, but there is also a certain purity about him that comes from his naive obsession with money... At the end, he finds peace... in Marthe... (J. Lawler)

Emilie L'Hôte is a student at the ENS-LSH in Lyon (former Fontenay St. Cloud), and she is currently working on her masters of English Studies in linguistics. She has been teaching French at Harvard since September, which has been a highly enriching experience so far. Interpreting Lechy is a new point of view on theatre for her, having concentrated on the literary and linguistic sides of it in the past. (She used Synge's plays when studying Irish English.)

About her character : Lechy seems to be born of the fusion between Katharina the shrew and Blanche Dubois. Throughout the play, her duplicity is intriguingly confusing. She is the drunk shrew and the desperate woman, she is a caricature as well as the voice of the author. She gives herself to all, and she feeds on her contradictions while reflecting the other characters' too... (E. L'Hôte)