Les Idoles

I am no longer twenty years old. Today, I would like to talk about those strange days… How, over the course of a few years, those I had chosen as role models for my life, my loves, my ideas, all ended up on the side of death. How AIDS burned my idols. I am no longer twenty years old, and I would like to create a show that speaks of loss but also hopes to convey something. A show that answers the question: How do we dance afterwards?

After Nouveau Roman, in which he set out to meet a generation of writers who believed in form and style rather than meaning, making literature a place of invention – of oneself, of the world – rather than discourse, filmmaker and director Christophe Honoré returns to another generation of artists, the one before him, that of the 1980s and 1990s. It is not exactly a generation, let alone a movement, but rather the lives of artists and authors who share a common era, Mitterrand’s France, and a common disease – AIDS. Artists who left us too soon, without passing on their legacy to younger generations, artists whose works and lives were marked by the duality of love and death, sensuality and illness. Authors and artists from the worlds of theatre, dance and cinema who left their mark on a generation of young writers and teenagers, starting with Christophe Honoré. Les Idoles looks back at six major artists, their works and their lives, at their different ways of coping with illness and awaiting death – contemporary spectres, to speak of today. Les Idoles is a theatre of creation and heritage, passion and illness, featuring Jean-Luc Lagarce, Bernard-Marie Koltès, Hervé Guibert, Serge Daney, Cyril Collard and Jacques Demy.

Eric Vautrin

Created in September 2018 at the Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne

Time: 2h30

Concept and direction Christophe Honoré

Set design Alban Ho Van

Dramaturgy Timothée Picard

Lighting Dominique Bruguière

Assistant lighting designer Pierre Gaillardot

Costumes Maxime Rappaz

Assistant director (original production) Teddy Bogaert

Assistant director (2025 revival) Christèle Ortu

Cast

Youssouf Abi-Ayad (original production)

Paul Kircher (2025 revival)

Harrison Arévalo

Jean-Charles Clichet

Marina Foïs

Julien Honoré

Marlène Saldana

and featuring Teddy Bogaert (creation), a student from Studio d’Asnières (2025 revival)

Production Comité in Paris / Théâtre de Vidy, Lausanne

Co-production Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, Théâtre National de Bretagne, TAP – Théâtre Auditorium de Poitiers, TANDEM, scène nationale, Comédie de Caen, CDN de Normandie, TNT – Théâtre National de Toulouse, Le Parvis Scène Nationale Tarbes-Pyrénées, La Criée, Théâtre National de Marseille, MA Scène Nationale, Pays de Montbéliard

With the support of LINK, AIDS Donation Fund

With the artistic participation of the Jeune Théâtre National