1048 Lunes

First of all, the waiting. Like Briseis overlooking the sea, waiting for Achilles. Then Phyllis wandering through paths and forests, waiting for Demophon while Hero is on the lookout for Leander’s return; Oenone waiting for Paris; and, of course, Penelope, camped by Françoise Lebrun, longing for Ulysses. All of these characters are borrowed from Heroides, an Ovid’s text revisiting Greek mythology’s feminine figures under the guise of letters and messages sent to spouses or lovers they are separated from. Charlotte Serrand extends Ovide’s gesture of reappropriation, and if the costumes evoke Antiquity, the coastal cliff of Vendée and their bunkers are only remotely connected to Greece. Very little will be left of those letters dealing with waiting, desire, and suffering while responsibly anachronistic musics will be attending to Ovid’s rhetorical figures. Thus rises a floating tension full of humor and incongruities leading from past to present. And gradually the women’s submission starts cracking and shifting, as they meet, share their time waiting, keep busy – just like that moment steeped into contemporary sensitivity when they all go swimming. Penelope’s message is the only one to subsist – is it a question of generation? – although, ultimately, it will be forgotten as a result of their decision to leave together but also because they have reached the end of the 1048 moons referred to in the title: all of their time spent waiting. (NF)