Bernard-Marie Koltès

BernardMarie Koltès 9 April 1948 15 April 1989 was a French playwright and theatre director best known for his plays La Nuit juste avant les Forêts The Night Just Before the Forests 1976 Sallinger 1977 and Dans la Solitude des Champs de Coton In the Solitude of Cotton Fields 1986 A close friend and collaborator with the avantgarde director Patrice Chéreau the two created groundbreaking work together at both the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York City and the Théâtre des Amandiers in Nanterre At the time of his death Koltès was considered to be one of the most important young voices in French theatre and heir apparent to the legacy left by postwar playwrights such as Samuel Beckett Jean Cocteau and Jean Genet His plays have since become staples on the modern repertory around the world having been translated into more than 36 languages Born in 1948 to a middleclass family in Metz his life was violent and anchored in revolt He tried his hand at writing at a very young age but later renounced it and didnt take to the stage until the age of twenty after seeing the film actress María Casares starring in a production of Medea Médée directed by Jorge Lavelli Soon after in 1969 he was inspired and wrote his first play Les Amertumes Bitternesses a dramatization of Maksim Gorkys 1914 memoir My Childhood The play premiered in 1970 at the St Nicholas Church in Strasbourg By chance Hubert Gignoux the director of the National Theater of Strasbourg attended the show on opening night and was instantly enamored of Koltèss work Convinced that the twentyoneyear old fledgling playwright was a genius Gignoux invited him to attend the theatre school at TNS in 1971 Within the year Koltès directed and acted in productions at the Théâtre du Quai in Strasbourga company he founded He directed some of his own work there including La Marche The Walk an adaptation of the biblical Song of Solomon and Procès ivre Drunken Trial based on Fyodor Dostoevskys Crime and Punishment Some of Koltèss early works such as LHéritage The Inheritance and the unpublished Des Voix sourdes Deaf Voices were even broadcast on national French radio in 1972 and 1973 His first widely celebrated piece the long monologue The Night Just Before The Forests was staged in 1977 at the Avignon Festival and subsequent productions were put on in collaboration with director Patrice Chéreau Koltèss work based in reallife problems expresses the tragedy of being alone and of death His writing style accents the dramatic tension and the lyricism of his plays Koltes also translated into French Shakespeares The Winters Tale Source Article BernardMarie Koltès from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30