Returning to Reims

An actress is recording a voice-over for a film version of Didier Eribon’s highly praised book Returning to Reims under the leadership of a director. Before long, the film’s questions about class awaken a lively discussion in the recording studio. The ensemble: Lena Endre, Jesper Söderblom and the critically praised rapper Parham.

The film, used as a backdrop in the performance, is a documentary essay in which the sociologist and writer Didier Eribon recounts how he returned to his hometown and his family after an academic career in Paris. Confronted with his own past, he now reaches new insights about the brutal excluding mechanisms of the middle class and the migration of the working class to the extreme right. How did it happen? Are the leftists to blame? Or is it his own fault, having denied his own working-class background for such a long time? And what’s the solution? In the studio, the actress and the director try to deal with these questions. In the background, a sound technician moves around with unexpected abilities.

The production is directed by one of Germany’s and Europe’s most eminent directors, Thomas Ostermeier, artistic director of the highly influential theatre Schaubühne in Berlin. This is a co-production with Sweden’s Royal Dramatic Theatre (Dramaten), where it opens on September 26. The play had its world premiere in Manchester and has since been produced in Berlin, France and Italy.

Returning to Reims is based on the book with the same name (Retour à Reims) by Didier Eribon, Editions Fayard, France. The Swedish edition of the book was translated by Johan Wollin.

Premiere

18 Mar 2022

Stage

Stora Scen