Lysistrata, mon amour

by Matei Vişniec

Lysistrata , d’Aristophane, comédie pétillante sur la guerre de Péloponnèse, a traversé les siècles avec un succès jamais démenti. Il y a plus de deux millénaires, cette courageuse athénienne proposait aux femmes de la Grèce de faire la grève du sexe pour obliger les hommes à ne plus s’entretuer.  Lysistrata, mon amour  projette cet épisode antique dans le tumulte des guerres contemporaines, mais aussi dans le contexte d’incitations multiples à la violence entre les sexes et entre les peuples. Voilà que les Européens, fascinés par l’industrie du divertissement, se souviennent, devant la tentative d’annexion de l’Ukraine par la Russie, que la liberté doit parfois être défendue les armes à la main. Matéi Visniec lance alors, avec l’humour et l’ironie qu’on lui connaît, une sorte de signal d’alarme à Lysistrata, qui n’ira pas non plus sans controverse. Dramaturge face à la dictature, Matéi Visniec dénonce dans ses pièces la machine totalitaire, puis choisit l’exil en France en 1987. Ses pièces sont aujourd’hui jouées sur quatre continents, du Piccolo Teatro de Milan au Théâtre Maxime‑Gorky de Berlin, en passant par Avignon, Limoges, Paris, Téhéran et Hollywood. Une trentaine de ses pièces ont été éditées en français.

120 pages, Paperback

Published November 2, 2023

About the author

From an early age, Matei Vişniec discovered literature as a space dedicated to freedom. He draws his strengths from Kafka, Dostoevsky, Poe, Lautréamont. He loves the Surrealists, the Dadaists, absurd and grotesque theatre, surrealist poetry, fantastic literature, magical realism, even the realist Anglo-Saxon theatre. He loves everything except Socialist Realism.

Vişniec studied philosophy at Bucharest University and became an active member of the so-called Eighties Generation, who left a clear stamp on the Romanian literature. He believes in cultural resistance, and in literature’s capacity to demolish totalitarianism. Above all, Matei Vişniec believes that theatre and poetry can denounce manipulation through "great ideas", as well as brainwashing through ideology.

Before 1987 Matei Vişniec had made a name for himself in Romania by his clear, lucid, bitter poetry. Starting with 1977, he wrote drama; the plays were much circulated in the literary milieus but were barred from staging. In September 1987, Vişniec left Romania for France, where he was granted political asylum. He started writing in French and began working for Radio France Internationale. At the present time, Vişniec has had many of his works staged in France, and some twenty of his plays written in French are published (Actes Sud-Papier, L'Harmattan, Lansman). His plays have been staged in more than 20 countries. In Romania, after the fall of Communism, Matei Vişniec has become one of the most frequently performed authors.

The work of Matei Vişniec has been represented in London by the performance "The Body of a Woman as a Battlefield in the Bosnian War", staged at the Young Vic Theatre, in November 2000. The play received rave reviews in the British newspapers and magazines, including The Guardian. "The Story of the Panda Bears told by a Saxophonist who has a Girlfriend in Frankfurt" has been performed at the Edinburgh Festival (August 2005). The production is by Rouge28 Theatre, London.
In Unites States, the work of Matei Vişniec has been represented in New York, Chicago, New Jersey and Hollywood.