Autopsy - Creation... Readind... work in progress... Foreplay*

Written and designed by Geoffrey Coppini
Costumes – Make-up & Hairdressing live Geoffrey Coppini
Musical arrangement Irina Solano
With Irina Solano and Geoffrey Coppini

The actress tells us about important parts. She will be Phaedra, Thelma without Louise, a Hitchcock heroine...
While practicing before our eyes Ibsen's mythical character, Hedda Gabler, she is full of promises.
She passed an audition for the play Hedda Gabler staged by a young contemporary stage director, who decided to put up Hedda Gabler without Hedda.
He will design a tailor made part, that of Diane, a character briefly mentioned in one line but who, for artistic reasons, becomes a central character of this adaptation.
Gradually the actress practices, gradually she opens up, changes.
Who do we see, the actress or her part?
Who is the coroner? Tesman? Lövborg? The white-shirted actress's lover?
In one sentence, she switches the set and, as a result, her partners' parts.
What she promises, it's a beautiful finale.


What started as a commissioned piece (designing a performance where I would be doing an actress's hair on stage) turned into a project which concretely connects my two jobs: stage director and set hairdresser.

This piece focuses on the questions that usually pervade my work: that of making the human aspect disappear behind the monstrous and the other way around.
The transformation no longer occurs before but during the performance. I have always tried to reveal actors running after their roles.
Through the actress's physical transformation, by adding layers of make-up and hairstyles, she becomes a stranger. The human figure disappears gradually to let a creature appear: that of our theatre and film memories, our dreams and fantasies.
A coroner draws and sculpts the outline of this woman, gradually confusion steps in...

Geoffrey Coppini

A LAST Cie production. Co-production Les Informelles - KOMM'N'ACT with the support for residency by théâtre du Merlan, scène nationale à Marseille.
LAST Cie is supported for production and diffusion by KOMM´N'ACT, A Platform for young international creation.
This project receives the support of théâtre des Bernardines, scène nationale du Merlan and MC93 Bobigny.

*foreplay comes generally before and act. Sometimes they are disappointing in comparison with the act. Sometimes they are more intense than the act. Sometimes they are self-sufficient.