Scenography and staging are reduced to a minimum

Amos Gitai took us cold. It was expected a lyrical epic on the Rocky stage in the career of Boulbon. "The war of the sons of light against the sons of darkness" is more didactic presentation - reading implementation (large). Israeli Director wanted us to hear the strong passages from "The war of the Jews", of Josephus. This bet, at least, is successful. The story by the "traitor" philosopher, Jew who became Roman in the crash of the Hebrews by Vespasian and Titus - the fall of Jerusalem, then Masada-, flap as a flag in mineral décor of the career, bloody metaphor of all the lands of the Orient.

Scenography and staging are reduced to a minimum. Mobile scaffold towers are fortresses and palaces. The people is stonemason - walls that it strengthens, constructed and deconstructed. The pain is sung (in yiddish beautifully by Menachem Lang), or performed by a Quartet of musicians. The hours and the moods of the days, the massacres and triumphs are suggested by the beautiful light of Jean Kalman games - wheelchair lights of projectors or simple fires. Images, but little gestures. The floor, only one is Queen.

To give voice to this "historic speech", needed an interpreter to exception. Jeanne Moreau is Josephus, inspired by this tragic war soloist. With its very interior game, it is the ambiguity of the character. After having valiantly fought the Romans, Josephus went to save his skin or because he was convinced that stop the fight against an enemy too powerful was the only way to save his people and his religion

The redemption of Josephus, it is the story... Its accountability will have failed to curb the Roman bulldozer. But it will be offered the opportunity to testify, to render justice to the vanquished and thus provide a past memory to future generations. Josephus of Jeanne Moreau fades before the history. Quiet and painful for actress diction leaves barely reflected by some inflections of voice and gesture, the weight of treason, of doubt and the abatement. Sitting behind a table, before the scene - as a University prof-, the face in the shadows, hair fringed with gold, she comments on the war taking place behind her, like an ancient choir.

Jerome Koenig and Gérard Benhamou embody the father-son Titus Vespasian couple. They are treated as secondary characters, armed arm shocked of a fate which pleased them, but exceeds. Eric Elmosnino and Shredy Jabarin, Camping with feverish intensity Eleazar and Shimon, the zealots, revolutionary hardliners, Josèphe held responsible for the defeat. White appearance, Mireille Perrier is Miriam, symbol of all women victims of the murderous madness of men.

You out upset this necessary show, very current resonances. But disappointed that Amos Gitaï, to make it more clear and more serious, had flanged emotions at this point. "The war of the sons of light against the sons of darkness" does lack neither intelligence nor Majesty, only a bit of theatre. The theatre that speaks as much to the spirit that the heart and soul.

With Jeanne Moreau. Duration: 1 h 45. Last tonight in Avignon (Boulbon quarry).

In Paris at the Théâtre de l ' Odéon from 6 to 10 January 2010