Adaptation of an early work by the Swiss writer Robert Walser, L'Etang (The Pond, der Teich) reveals an intricate tale of filial love by distributing the roles between two actresses, Adèle Haenel and Ruth Vega Fernandez.
L’Etang is a family drama that stands out from the rest of Robert Walser's work (1878–1956): it is a private text that the young writer had offered to his sister and the only one that he ever wrote in Swiss German. L’Etang is the story of a boy who feels unloved by his mother and, at the lowest point of his despair, pretends to commit suicide in order to see her love for him one last time. What are the real issues here? What is being played out between the lines and on stage? What are the different levels of language, from narrative to words, whether formulated or not, which make up our perception, our understanding and our exchanges? These questions—which have long been at the heart of Gisèle Vienne's work—create mise en abymes through Robert Walser’s text and the staging strategy: Adèle Haenel and Ruth Vega Fernandez embody one and two characters respectively while lending their voices to the others. Several levels of perception of reality and temporality, interiority and exteriority coexist.
In examining the conventions of the theater and the family, L’Etang notably raises the question of the shared representation of reality, the social norm, and what we see, while shaking up its essential aspects.
This piece is created in memory of Gisèle Vienne's long-time collaborator, actress Kerstin Daley Baradel, who died in July 2019, and with whom, in collaboration with the team, she had developed this work so intimately.

Gisèle Vienne is a franco-austrian artist, choreographer and director. After graduating in Philosophy, she studied at the puppeteering school Ecole Supérieure Nationale des Arts de la Marionnette. She works regularly with the
writer Dennis Cooper, among others.
Over the past 20 years, her work has been touring in Europe and regularly performed in Asia and in America, among which, I Apologize (2004), Kindertotenlieder (2007), Jerk (2008), This is how you will disappear (2010),
LAST SPRING: A Prequel (2011), The Ventriloquists Convention (2015) in collaboration with Puppentheater Halle and Crowd (2017). In 2020, she created with Etienne Bideau-Rey a fourth version of Showroomdummies at the
Rohm Theater Kyoto, originally created in 2001.
Gisèle Vienne has frequently been exhibiting her photographs in museums among which the New York Whitney Museum, the Centre Pompidou, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Buenos Aires. With Dennis Cooper, Peter
Rehberg and Jonathan Capdevielle she published two books : JERK / Through Their Tears and 40 PORTRAITS 2003-2008, in collaboration with Dennis Cooper and Pierre Dourthe in February 2012. Her work has led to various
publications and the original music of her shows to several albums.
Her latest show L’Etang (The Pond) based on Robert Walser’s play Der Teich was created in November 2020 at the TNB in Rennes.
For more information please visit: http:// www.g-v.fr.