Le Pays lointain

Le Pays lointain is Lagarce's last play and his ultimate variation on a theme that occupied him all his life: the return of the prodigal son to his family. Present and past intermingle, sketching out the last twenty years of Louis's life, as he continues to announce his imminent death. No time or place, just a list of eleven magnific roles: the father, the mother, Antoine the brother, Suzanne the sister, or Catherine the sister-in-law. But Le Pays lointain isn't just a family story. It's also the chronicle of Louis' love affairs, with a whole procession of more or less fleeting silhouettes returning in turn to visit him... What lines of flight do they trace around Louis' silences, around the terrible confession he may never be able to articulate? Missing or returning, they can all express themselves, as Louis lets those close to him speak, and allows multiple points of view to emerge: this "distant land" is also a crossroads where the hero is told the truth... Clément Hervieu-Léger is the same age as Louis. His energetic reading gives Pays lointain the dimension of a true contemporary classic, that of a work that "allows us to tell the story of our own generation regardless of when it was written."