Massimo Furlan / Numero23Prod.

Vidéos

Numéro 10

Number 10
A project by Massimo Furlan, NUMERO23Prod. (Switzerland)
With Didier Roustan and Michel Hidalgo
Performed: 8th of August 2006, Parc des Princes, Paris

The performance

We enter the empty stadium. On the field, a man, alone. He wears the jersey of France’s national football team. Number 10. We hear the national anthems, the French and then the German. The storyteller is seated in the middle of the public. He tells us about the semi final match of the 1982 world cup, between France and Germany. We are in Seville, Spain. We hear the voice of the commentator emitted by the small radios we received upon entering the stadium. It is a famous voice, which we immediately relate to the world of football. The match begins. The small blue man runs across the field, he is Michel Platini. He re-enacts conscientiously Michel Platini’s every movement, every gimmick he did that night. History starts over again. From the stadium’s empty terraces, we hear the voices of the spectator’s from 1982. There are ghosts on the field as well. We live once again and remember the 1982 match, submerged by its sublime dramaturgy and by emotions. Nobody has forgotten. We find ourselves dreaming, even though we already know the story and its tragic end. We shout, we yell, we sing, we become actors, we fill the stadium’s emptiness with our imaginary. We believe -or do as if we believed- until the end of the story.

Number 10

Number 10 is considered the artist, the creator of a team, the one from whom one expects innovation, the stroke of genius that will win the match. Number 10 is the leading role.
Michel Platini, a son of an Italian immigrant, doesn’t ask himself questions relating to his identity. He is French. Torino’s Juventus team leader, admired by all Italians, considered as one of the best players of all times. In France, he embodies the model, the dream of a whole generation of football players.

The match

This match left its mark on the French, it is still present in their memories. Despite having been defeated and the tremendous deception, it remains one of the most mythical matches of France’s national team. It is enormous, the absolute model of how football may be played: a 120 minutes and the golden goal. An exceptional dramaturgy, action, dream, hope, and finally the tremendous deception. The match is beautiful, full of rhythm, but also violence. It is in all memories, a piece of history that people can share. For Michel Platini, the match is unforgettable: “In Seville, it was a match of anthology. We are leading 3-1 against a very good German team. I think it is the match of my career. The one which will remain engraved in my memory. On the level of the game, of the emotions, of the unfolding of the encounter, Schumacher’s aggression, the penalty which was not given… Never in my life had I felt such different and strong emotions.”

Didier Roustan

The voice, the journalist, the commentator. He is the storyteller, it is he who once again tells us this tragic tale. We know the story, yet we listen once more. We know this voice as well. The journalist is located in the middle of the public. He provides the spectator with the words that allow us to project and reconstitute the story.

The performer

Massimo Furlan. A man, alone in the middle of the filed, lost in a gigantic stadium. He wears the jersey of France’s national team, with its antiquated colours, the number 10. He is the artist. It is he who generates dreams or nightmares. Evidently, he is not a football player. He runs right and left, desperately trying to embody the heroic figure of Michel Platini. His attempt is both pathetic and moving. Burlesque. The spectacular becomes intimate. The individual is at grips with a Herculean task. Man facing the impossible. Yet this is the very essence of performance, of interpretation. Although we are not in a theatre, the actor embodies a role, and the stadium becomes a stage. What we are witnessing is not a tragedy in the classical sense and yet we are confronted with the mechanisms of the antique tragedy.

The stadium

The Parc des Princes is a mythical space, tightly bound to the history of the French national team of the 80s. A grandiose space. A space in which dreams are made, in which one imagines one self a heroic figure, the nation’s hero. In this majestic, spectacular space, the spectator fills the empty seats with his own imagination, hears the cries of the spectators of 1982, but in the background, ghost like in tone. And the field, a bright green rectangle, luminous, almost empty, only inhabited by this little blue character. Here too ghosts inhabit the emptiness.

With the support of:
La Loterie romande, l’Etat de Vaud, Pro Helvetia, la Ville de Lausanne

A coproduction:
Festival Paris Quartier d’été, Paris