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Farewell, Mister Haffmann, a drama with comic and suspense highlights, directed by Felix Alexa
Director Felix Alexa and set designer Andrada Chiriac return to the NTB stage with Farewell Mister Haffmann, a play written by French playwright Jean-Philippe Daguerre. Performed with great success on Parisian stages, Adieu, Monsieur Haffmann earned four Molière awards in 2018, France's highest theatrical distinction. A story set in Nazi-occupied Paris, Farewell Mister Haffmann presents the unusual pact between a Jew and a French Catholic, a moral contract that will change their destinies. A mixture of fiction and reality, the show is a mix of small intimate stories set against the backdrop of World War II, a story that begins in 1942 and ends in the present day, with the disappearance of a painting by Henri Matisse at its core. Confiscated by the Nazis and thought lost forever, the painting Seated Woman has returned home after more than 70 years.
A national premiere, Farewell Mister Haffmann is both a page of history and a surprising life story, a drama with comic overtones and suspense, performed by actors Alexandru Potocean, Richard Bovnoczki, Alexandra Sălceanu, Emilia Popescu, and Andrei Finți.
The first performances will take place on May 19th, 20th, 29th, and 30th, and the official premiere is scheduled for June 2nd and 3rd, 2021, at the NTB Painting Hall!
Director Felix Alexa about the show:
With a filmic structure and a very well dosed rhythm of the scenes, oscillating between the drama of family situations and historical context, the play Farewell Mister Haffmann seemed to me the perfect opportunity for an exercise in style and theatrical rigour.
Together with a wonderful team of actors, I created a performance in which I set out to discover infinite human nuances expressed with maximum intensity and finesse. At the same time observing, with tenderness and humour, how paradoxical life can sometimes become, especially when we complicate it ourselves.
Our show is about fragile beings thrown into the whirlwind of history and personal events that go haywire.
A frailty that does not exclude strength and courage.
The author Jean Philippe-Daguerre about the play:
I am not Jewish, the playwright says, but anti-Semitism troubled me from an early age, from school. The visit I made to Auschwitz when I was 14 years old disturbed me. The courage of my great-grandparents, who hid Jews in the cellar of their home during the Occupation, was another reason I wrote this story. It is important to remind people about the big history, if it will enable them to live their little histories better and, above all, not to repeat the mistakes that give rise to horror.
From the French press:
Currently being performed at the Petit Montparnasse Theatre, Farewell Mister Haffmann is one of the most beautiful successes of this beginning of the year. Jean-Philippe Daguerre's first play is a suspenseful story set behind closed doors. Is "courage stronger than fear", as Haffmann would have us believe?
Le Parisien, February 2018
Another quality of the show is its intellectual honesty. No one here is either good or bad, just human beings trying not to degrade themselves too much in a difficult historical context where very few are truly heroes. The situation is powerful enough to make us understand the ambiguities of desire and the impossibility of innocence.
Le Figaro - Jean-Luc Jeener, February 2018
You are most welcome to the theatre, the NTB halls have reopened!
Translated by Simona Nichiteanu
