KAPMEN?
KAPMEN? Based on Carmen by Prosper Mérimée and Carmen by Georges Bizet
Adaptation and direction by Gilles Denizot
Premiered on May 15, 2009 at Pierce Studio Theater, Athens/Greece
Director’s Notes
Πᾶσα γυνὴ χόλος ἐστὶν· ἔχει δ’ ἀγαθάς δύο ὥρας, Τὴν μίαν ἐν θαλάμῳ, τὴν μίαν ἐν θανάτῳ.
Woman is like poison; but she has two good hours, in bed, and dead.
Palladas
When Prosper Mérimée published his novel Carmen in 1845, he chose to open it with this misogynistic epigram from Palladas. He also tried to translate it into French and did not exactly succeed due to the epigram’s complexity. One should understand that woman is a source of anger and rage; but she has two good hours: in her bridal room and on her death. The picture is clear: a true story once told to Mérimée, the assassination of a frivolous mistress by a jealous lover. Sadly, misogyny and jealousy are still alive today.
A man becomes a rascal without thinking of it. A pretty girl steals your wits, you fight for her, an accident happens, you have to live in the mountains, and from a smuggler you become a robber before you know it. (…) When she said: “be off!” I could not go. (…) Frenzy took possession of me. I drew my knife. I would have liked her to show some fear and to beg for mercy, but that woman was demon. (…) I struck her twice. (…) She fell at the second stroke, without a sound.
The simple, tragic drama is ended. Was Xose really destined to become a murderer? In Bizet’s opera, he sings
Pourquoi faut-il que le destin l’ait mise là sur mon chemin !
(Why did fate have to place her here on my path!) One day, the main characters of this drama are face to face:
I raised my eyes and I saw her. It was Friday, and I shall never forget it.
Shortly before being stabbed to death by Xose, Kapmen screams:
Free she was born, and free she will die.
She is a strongly independent woman who chooses to love or not to love. Just like she often laughs at her implacable fate, she freely decides to offer herself one last time to her enraged and frustrated former lover. Palladas also once wrote:
All life is a stage and a game: either learn to play it, laying by seriousness, or bear its pains. (In Palatine Anthology XLIII – The Rules of the Game)
KAPMEN? offers a two-fold lecture of the novel Carmen by Mérimée and of the “opéra-comique” Carmen by Bizet. We return to the original version with spoken dialogues (re-written in Modern Greek, echoing the Ancient Greek quote by Palladas) basing ourselves on the Mérimée novel rather than on the libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. We also include a dialogue from Odos Oneiron (The Street of Dreams) following Xose’s fight with One-Eyed.
The music mainly comes from Bizet’s score but the following classical elements are included in the adaptation:
- Cordoba (4th solo for guitar from Cantos de España Op.232 by Spanish composer Albeniz) for the river bathing scene;
- Karagkouna (solo for guitar by Greek composer Fampas) for the nocturnal and first entrance of Kapmen;
- Lagrima (solo for guitar by Spanish composer Tarrega) for the church scene.
The instrumental ensemble consists of three musicians playing piano, guitar, accordeon, bouzouki and baglama (a very tiny bouzouki, its small size made it particularly popular with musicians who needed an instrument transportable enough to carry around easily or small enough to shelter under a coat. During parts of the 20th Century, players of the bouzouki and baglama were persecuted by the government, and the instruments were smashed by the police. From Wikipedia). This peculiar score arrangement allows the following Greek songs in the adaptation:
- Ο Γιάννης ο φονιάς (O Giannis o fonias, song by Greek composer Hadjidakis) sung and played at the guitar by Xose after the murder;
- Το πουλί (To Pouli, song by Greek composer Hadjidakis, from Odos Oneiron) sung by Kapmen to a wounded Xose;
- Αθανασία (Athanasia, song by Greek composer Hadjidakis) sung by Xose at the very end of the adaptation.
The cast is reduced on purpose and includes:
- a narrator playing Prospero;
- three main actors/singers (Kapmen, Xose, Escamillo);
- five additional actors/singers (Frasquita, Mercedes, Remendado, Dancaïro, The Lieutenant/One-Eyed/A Pope).
We shall play with the tragic situation, with the accidents of fate, in order to uncover pre-conceived ideas and to find – on stage – the freedom that defines Carmen.
Synopsis
Prospero befriends a young man named Xose. Later by the river, as the dim light falls from the stars, Prospero meets Kapmen, a beautiful young woman who is fascinated by his watch. She tells his fortune, but is interrupted by Xose, her lover, who swiftly asks Prospero to leave. The watch is missing.
Some months later, Prospero learns that Xose is to be executed. Prospero visits the prisoner and hears the story of his life. A nobleman, he once killed a man in a fight. Forced to flee, he joined a unit of soldiers with police functions.
One day he met Kapmen. As he ignored her, she teased him. Moments later, he arrested her for cutting someone’s throat in a quarrel. She convinced him to let her go, for which he was imprisoned for a month and demoted. Once again a simple soldier, Xose saw Kapmen seducing a lieutenant. As he fell in love with her, he simultaneously discovered jealousy. He encountered Kapmen again and she repaid him with a night of bliss which abruptly ended. Lost and devastated, Xose searched for comfort in a church only to find Kapmen with the lieutenant. In the ensuing fight, Xose killed the lieutenant and had to join Kapmen’s outlaw band.
With the outlaws, he progressed from smuggling to robbery, and also learned that Kapmen was married to a villain named “One-Eyed”. When Kapmen’s husband joined the band, Xose provoked a knife fight with him and killed him. Kapmen became Xose’s wife.
However, she eventually became attracted to Escamillo, a successful young man. Xose, mad with jealousy, begged her to forsake other men and leave with him; they could start an honest life elsewhere. But she knew he was fated to kill her.
Free she was born, and free she will die…