L’Épreuve
after Marivaux – Studio-Théâtre of the Comédie-Française (2023) / La Scala Provence and Paris (2024)
By combining the plots of L’Épreuve and La Dispute, Robin Ormond transposes Marivaux’s world into the present, where seduction becomes a social experiment.
The characters watch, test, and manipulate one another in a stripped-down, almost clinical space where every gesture reveals a strategy.
The marivaudian game turns into a study of love under suspicion: what remains of trust when affection itself becomes procedural?
Text: Robin Ormond, after Pierre de Marivaux
Direction: Robin Ormond
Set and lighting design: Nina Coulais
Costumes: Clément Desoutter
Music and sound design: Tom Beauseigneur
With: Sanda Bourenane, Yasmine Haller, Vincent Breton, Olivier Debbasch, Alexandre Manbon
Production: Comédie-Française (Studio-Théâtre) / La Scala Provence and Paris
©️ Photo credit: Hugues Duchêne / Jean-Louis Fernandez
Press excerpt
L’Essentiart – Benoît Gaboriaud (29 septembre 2024)
“A freely inspired adaptation of Marivaux: L’Épreuve Robin Ormond’s L’Épreuve plunges us into a retro-futurist dystopia – disorienting, full of poetry and imagination.
By intertwining La Dispute and L’Épreuve in a contemporary setting, Ormond reveals the disquieting modernity of Marivaux’s thought.
Through an atmospheric, slightly queer staging, he exposes the hidden wounds of desire.”
Télérama – Kilian Orain (juillet 2024)
“An ambitious blend of genres!
Marivaux’s language is rediscovered here in a novel, richly textured way.
The direction of the actors reaches for grand theatre.”
Arts-chipels – Sarah Franck (18 septembre 2024)
“Robin Ormond fuses L’Épreuve and La Dispute into a contemporary experiment on love and control in the age of surveillance.
In a translucent set, the characters believe themselves free while being trapped in a confined space, observed by an unseen ‘Prince.’
A sharp, unsettling reinterpretation about the impossibility of true love in a world of screens and masquerades.”