Proust 4: De kant van Marcel – Marcel’s Way

In this fourth part, we step outside the novel, to see the man behind the great book through the eyes of Céleste Albaret. Céleste was Proust’s housekeeper, secretary and nurse during the last phase of his life. She was at his disposal 24 hours a day and got to know the person of Marcel Proust like nobody else. As Proust confided in her: “You know everything about me”. In 1972, she wrote down her recollections of this time. These memoirs form an important starting point for this fourth part. In their conversations, the banality of everyday life alternates with deep views on remembering and forgetting, and on the role of art in creating a world which transcends time. After the large-scale social and moral fresco of “Proust 3”, “Proust 4” is once more an intimate production about remembering, writing and disappearing.

The four-part theatre cycle “In search of lost time”, based on Marcel Proust’s masterpiece is a grand and multifaceted project: the director Guy Cassiers has been working on this project for three seasons at the ro theatre.

“In search of lost time” is the story of the initiation of a young man, Marcel, into the world of love, aristocracy and the arts. It can be called a panoramic time document for the last decades of the nineteenth and the first decades of the twentieth century, a period in which more changes took place than had done since the beginning of Christian times.

For Guy Cassiers, the central theme is ‘the functioning of the imagination’, as defined by Proust in his novel in minute detail. In keeping with his previous stagings, Guy Cassiers works in a multimedial way here too: actors, storytelling, live music, video images and text projections represent the many layers in Proust’s rich novel. The inner world created on stage contains a continual blending of past and present, and imagination and memories.

“Proust 1: Swann’s Way”, “Proust 2: Albertine’s Way”, “Proust 3: Charlus’ Way” and “Proust 4: Marcel’s Way” have garnered both critical and public acclaim. All parts of the Proust-cycle are completed stories and can be seen separately.

Cast

Directed by Guy Cassiers
Dramaturgy Erwin Jans
Stage Design Marc Warning
Costume Design Valentine Kempynck (BELGAT)
Lighting Design Enrico Bagnoli
Video Concept Marc Warning, Kantoor voor Bewegend Beeld (Eelko Ferwerda, Jasper Wessels)
Video Kantoor voor Bewegend Beeld
Sound Design Diederik De Cock
Translations and Dubbing Michael Müller-Engelhardt

With Marlies Heuer, Paul R. Kooij, Eelco Smits, Fania Sorel