THE INVISIBLE ADVENTURE
A brain scientist who loses her identity after a stroke, a queer filmmaker who uses art as a form of death ritual to connect with a forgotten queer photographer, and the first transplantation patient in the world to receive a new face from a dead man. Three extraordinary life stories come together in this documentary based conversation drama about identity, death and transformation.
The play premiered in French with the title L'Aventure Invisible at T2G Théâtre de Gennevilliers in Paris as part of Festival d'Automne in October 2020. It is based on interviews with three people: An American brain scientist who experienced a stroke and was able to study the collapse of her own brain from the inside. At the age of 37, she lost all her memories and was forced to re-invent her whole personality from scratch. A bookseller from Paris, was born with a genetic disease that made his face deformed. Through experimental surgery, he was able to receive the world’s first full facial transplantation. And an experimental filmmaker became obsessed with the mysterious photography of iconic queer artist Claude Cahún. Through elaborate cinematic reconstructions of Cahún’s photos, the filmmaker opens up a portal to the past. The three voices come together in a thought-provoking and illuminating conversation where no question is too intimate to be asked and where the answers bring us on a journey deep inside ourselves – underneath the skin of our faces, and inside our own brains.
The invisible adventure is partly based on interviews with brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor, facial transplantation patient Jérôme Hamon and artist Sarah Pucill.
TOUR 2021-2022
Festival d’Automne de Paris, France
Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels, Belgium
Schaubühne - FIND Festival, Berlin, Germany
Wiener Festwoche, Vienna, Austria
Piccolo Teatro in Milan, Italy
Teatro di India in Rome, Italy
Festival Act’Oral, Marseilles, France
Comédie de Caen in Normandie, France
INFO & CREDITS
ORIGINAL TITLE L’Aventure invisible
LANGUAGE French
LENGTH 80 min
YEARS 2020-2022
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY Marcus Lindeen
TRANSLATION Marianne Ségol-Samoy
ARTISTIC COLLABORATION & DRAMATURGY Marianne Ségol-Samoy
MUSIC AND SOUND Hans Appelqvist
SCENOGRAPHY Mathieu Lorry-Dupuy
LIGHTS Diane Guérin
FILM Sarah Pucill
TECHNICAL DIRECTION Dimitri Blin
SOUND ENGINEER Isaac Azoulay
CAST Claron McFadden/Isabelle Girard, Tom Menanteau, Franky Gogo
PRODUCTION Comédie de Caen-CDN de Normandie dans le cadre du Pôle Européen de création
CO-PRODUCTION T2G — Théâtre de Gennevilliers, Centre dramatique national; Festival d'Automne à Paris
WITH SUPPORT FROM l’Institut français, le ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires étrangères, le ministère de la Culture et la Cité internationale des arts, le Festival Les Boréales
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH Radio France Culture
EXTRA MATERIAL
︎ Download program notes (French)
︎ Interview with Marcus Lindeen for Institute Français (English)
︎ Interview with Marcus Lindeen for Schaubühne (English)
︎ Institute Français project presentation (French)
︎ Review in LesInrockuptibles (French)
