AsiaLIFE

Like so many other visitors to the country Catherine Marnas’ motivation for coming to Cambodia was one of intrigue. “I didn’t know Cambodia and had lots of curiosity about the country,” she explains while taking some time off from rehearsals for her upcoming play, ‘La Perdrix Mâle et la Perdrix Femelle’ (the male and female partridge).  “It’s very creative to think how I can do this here,” the French director says of her two-month project, working with Khmer actors and musicians in producing a brand new piece of contemporary dance for the forthcoming Lakhaon Festival. Not that this type of creative collaboration is anything new to the former teacher of interpretation at the National Conservatory in Paris.

When she is not putting on contemporary drama in Marseilles with her theatre troupe Company Parnas, Catherine works around the globe on similar projects to the one that has drawn her to Cambodia. Very much a wandering director, Catherine has been involved on similar projects in Brazil, Mexico and China. It was in Brazil that she met the French Cultural Centre’s director, Alain Arnaudet. “Alain saw a workshop I did in Brazil with some students,” she explains. “He said he wanted a workshop too.”


Handing Over Responsibility

For Catherine, the final performance is not everything. It is only part of the creative process. Shunning traditional auditions, she prefers to work with her potential actors in a workshop environment. Thirty Cambodian actors and musicians were initially selected for the workshop over 10 days. At the end, she chose the 10 Cambodians – six actors and four musicians – who would perform the new piece. In this way, Catherine hopes to get the performers more closely involved in the work. “The idea is to leave the actors and musicians as ‘owners’ of the performance,” she explains.

Using traditional Cambodian music and instruments, Catherine has created a contemporary piece through incorporating modern theatrical approaches and techniques new to Cambodia. “It is interesting work, but it is very different,” she explains. “The rhythm is different – of speech, of life – there is no break.” Not that she is unfamiliar to such challenges. In China, she was unable to communicate directly with her actors. “I was obliged to hear the music of their language,” she explains. As a director you get an instinctive feeling as to whether your actors have got their lines right, she adds. Catherine demonstrates to the actors all elements of performance from how to move on the stage to female actors developing a more realistic speaking pitch than the traditional one adopted in Cambodia.


Cross-cultural Project

The story of ‘La Perdrix Mâle et la Perdrix Femelle’ reflects the cross-cultural nature of the project, which has involved French composer, Alain Aubin, as well as Catherine. Based on a traditional Khmer tale, which was translated into French, Catherine has introduced tales familiar to western audiences, such as the riddle of the Sphynx and Puccini’s Turandot. The script was then translated back into Khmer. The two Chenla Theatre performances will have both English and French subtitles. The storyline of love, death, rebirth and ultimate success after a long struggle, can be seen as both a reflection of Cambodia’s own history and that of its dramatic art. “There was a tradition and then a break,” Catherine says referring to the Khmer Rouge period. “There are lots of things to build in dramatic art.”

Accepting that performers need to reflect upon the past, she also feels that dramatic art has to offer something new for the country’s youth. For her, actresses such as Chumuan ‘Belle’ Sodhachivy, who plays the female lead in the new work, represent the future for Cambodian contemporary dance and theatre.