Les Trois sisters

Three sisters live reclusively in a Japanese village and commemorate the disappearance of their father, a business leader and robotics engineer. One of them is replaced by an android programmed by the late patriarch before his disappearance. While life follows its course, talking about everything and nothing, something heavy hangs in the air. Only the sister's avatar detaches itself from this false pretense and carries a sincere, disturbing word. Before our eyes, a ballet of actors inhabits the passing time. The dialogue of bodies – for some robotized by meticulous choreographic work – plays with the limit between the real and the plausibility. By taking up the Japanese adaptation of Oriza Hirata, the director finds new resonances to the play originally created by the writer Anton Tchekhov. But Les Trois sœurs (android version) are independent of the Russian work: the artist offers us a new and singular reading that echoes the issues that concern us today: what defines our human nature, in a context where new intelligences are emerging, more and more efficient? We are immersed in a strange atmosphere where we no longer know who holds the power if not the multiple societal and family structures that lock; and where revelations are made without fanfare. The muffled violence is exacerbated by the contrast with an aesthetic, hushed space, steeped in conventions. Jasmina Douieb, partner artist of Varia, puts her finger on our relationship to multiple violence: that of family secrets and power dynamics. She also confronts us with the question of finitude and offers us a true philosophy of sharing, connection, and empathy.