A Beautiful Stranger

A Beautiful Stranger

Date:

02 JUN - 04 JUN 2023

Time:

2-4 Jun 2023 (Fri - Sun) 8 pm; 3-4 Jun 2023 (Sat - Sun) 3 pm

Venue:

Black Box Theatre, Kwai Tsing Theatre

Admission :

$220

A Beautiful Stranger

A single mother, Hafsa swims everyday for two hours to numb her breakup and feel alive again. One evening, at the pool, she meets Yaya, an undocumented teenager. In the midst of fantastic creatures, Hafsa and Yaya weave a relationship that has no name yet, a beautiful stranger who radically transforms Hafsa. 

A fifty-minute monologue, A Beautiful Stranger is a modern fairy tale adapted from the journey of Jason and the Argonauts, where love, motherhood and family are larger than expected.

Inspired by twenty interviews conducted around the question of hospitality, A Beautiful Stranger is a play for one actress and five characters to play in and out of theatres.


"A contemporary, deeply humanist fable. A Beautiful Stranger is an engaging literary moment, an intimate time to discover as soon as possible." L'OEIL D'OLIVIER
"The show is a risky and intriguing one." TELERAMA
"Selection of 18 shows not to be missed" Avignon Off 2021
"Nicolas Kerszenbaum explores the mythological stories and the echo they still have in us. A theatre without artifice that tells the timeless power of stories." TOUTELACULTURE.COM



Post-show Talk 
A chance to hear the artists talk about their work, which will take place in the auditorium following the performance on June 2. 

The running time of the performance is approximately 50 minutes.
In French, with Chinese & English surtitles.



Creative Team List

Artistic Director and playwright: Nicolas Kerszenbaum
Performers: Marion Bottollier / Eurydice El-Etr
Light designer: Pierre Daubigny
Light operator: Kosta Asmanis
Produced by: La Poudrerie, Théâtre des Habitants; Compagnie franchement, tu

 

Supported by La Manekine - Scène Intermédiaire des Hauts-de-France, Les Tréteaux de France, la Région Île-de-France, la DRAC Hauts-de-France, la Région Hauts-de-France, la Métropole d'Amiens, la Ville de Sevran, le Département de la Seine-Saint-Denis, la DRAC Ile-de-France




Nicolas Kerszenbaum

Artistic Director and playwright

A director and playwright with a degree in performing arts and economics, he founded the theatre group franchement, tu in 2005, with which he created over twenty creations. 

He recently in collaboration with the Thai company B-Floor Theatre and created A Thai Mirror (2022) in Bangkok, Persephone (2022) and A Beautiful Stranger (2019) for La Poudrerie – le Théâtre des Habitants, Two ghost cities (2018) in La Habana, Swann (Artcena winner, 2017), adapted from the novel by Marcel Proust, A New Hero (2014), which played over 150 times. 

This year, he will adapt Heart of Darkness, by Conrad, as a night walk in a forest, Kairos (2023), a four-episode theatre series which is the winner of Villa Médicis Hors les Murs. 

He has also worked with the Tréteaux de France, a National Dramatic Centre, for the creation of L'enfance à l'oeuvre (Festival Avignon in 2017), Ping Pong, which played more than 300 times, Oblomov (2020). He is a regular theatre teacher for La Sorbonne University and several French high schools.


Marion Bottollier

Performer

After studying the performing arts at Paris X University, she trained at the Conservatoire National Supérieur Paris Dramatic Art with Philippe Adrien, Muriel Mayette, Gérard Desarthe, Nada Strancar and Gilberte Tsaï. She also worked under the direction of Victor Gauthier Martin, Lisa Wurmser, Claudia Stavisky, Claude Baqué (alongside with the singer Camille), Olivier Lopez, François Rodinson and Julie Kretszchmar.

She joins the company Sic12 and Gustavo Giacosa for whom she dances and plays in Les Ponts Suspendus and La Maison. She also dances on the waterfront in Foofwa d'Immobilité’s Live and Dance and Die. Besides dancing, Marion Bottollier also does documentary theatre in No se registran conversaçiones de interes by Roger Bernat.

For the movies, she works with Philippe Garrel, Cristi Puiu, Fleur Melbourn, Thomas Lacoste and Arnaud Desplechin.

 

Eurydice El-Etr

Performer

She graduated from CNR d’Aubervilliers (piano performance) and Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris (Italian Literature) and trained as an actress in Paris, Moscow and New York (Susan Batson Studio). 

On the French stage, she acted in various productions, such as Procès ivre by Koltès (Groupe ACM – Théâtre du Soleil), Casimir and Caroline, by Horvath (Groupe ACM – Mains d'oeuvres, Théâtre 13, Scène Nationale de Cherbourg), Chroniques d'une révolution orpheline, by Mohammed El Attar (Leïla Rabih - Bobigny MC 93) or Jeanne created and directed by Cornelia Rainer (CDN de Rouen).

In the movie and TV business, she worked in Italy in La Viaggiatrice by D. Vigore, a short film which went to Mostra di Venezia in 2016, and the long-running series Il commissario Montalbano (RAI; Die Tagebücher von Adam und Eva by Franz Muller, a Germany series (Arte);and various  UK TV series: The Witches by Robert Zemeckis, Invasion by Jacob Verbruggen (Apple TV), or more recently, The Fear Index by David Caffrey, opposite Josh Hartnett and Greg Montel (Sky TV).

Ticketing Info

  • Tickets will be available at URBTIX from 16 March onwards
  • Half-price tickets available for Full-time students, senior citizens aged 60 or above, people with disabilities and minders, CSSA recipients and membership cardholders of Alliance Française de Hong Kong (Limited quota, first come, first served)
  • Group booking 
    1. 5% off for 4 - 6 standard tickets
    2. 10% off for 7 or more standard tickets

Audiences can enjoy only one of the above discount schemes for each purchase.

Please visit the ticketing information page for more details.

 

This programme is financially supported by the Arts Capacity Development Funding Scheme of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
The content of this programme does not reflect the views of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

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