Eonnagata

Is possible to undertake an initiatory journey even years into an artistic career? That, at least, is what Guillem, Maliphant and Lepage set out to demonstrate when they undertook this collaboration, a challenging work in which risk constantly looms over the stage. In Eonnagata, three of the world’s most outstanding artists come together in a production whose starting-point is the story of the Chevalier D’Éon, a spy in the pay of Louis XV, the first to use transvestitism to conceal his identity. In telling this story, the trio employ a formal language that draws from the ancient Japanese Kabuki theatre technique of Onnagata, in which male actors portray female roles. The result: different worlds merge to create a genre in which the whole is different from the sum of the parts.