Interview with Jean Lambert-wild

My Gnarled Apple Lover is the story of a tree. Why a tree?

First, because it is a sign, a symbol shared by Western culture: genealogy is thought of as a tree, an image inspired by the biblical tree of Jesse. I also feel a sort of empathy for trees. They have a certain grace about them: they are extremely fragile and cannot move. At the same time, though they are rooted in the earth, their spores and offshoots go further than they do. What I find interesting in the stillness of trees is that their offshoots must go further. A tree is motionless, yet it has movement: its branches move, they house life and stories. We, on the other hand, are moving beings; but we stay put. We can only remain on this planet: we move around and hope our offspring will go further! I also find roots and sap fascinating... The concept of ​​chlorophyll is incredible! Our own bodies can’t create the extraordinary exchange of energies that is photosynthesis! We can’t feed off the sun. Finally, trees are an interesting figure for children. They evoke parents, and adults generally. Ancestors are often compared to trees in France: we refer to some people as "oaks." Such images have a potentially incredible cathartic and poetic power.

The figure of the tree evokes the idea of roots, of the earth: is it related to the place where one is born and raised, that one carries within afterwards, like an apple rolling away from its tree, nourished by the land from which it came to be?

It’s more than that. It also involves the dark side of roots - they are like stakes reaching deep into the unknown. Roots are antennae, eyes, hands, something we are hooked to. Beyond the question of origins, of the earth and of one’s return to the ground, what I love about roots is that they are a hidden part that keeps us grounded. A body without roots disintegrates. When you compare a leaf to a picture of the human body’s nervous system, you can see that they operate on the same principle: they are networks of galleries, though ours remain invisible while making us hold on to something.

This is how roots help develop living things. What of the influence of external factors that shape trees and make them gnarly?

Old people are gnarly too. We become gnarly because life brings scars and tiredness. Grief will carve a wrinkle, joy will give you another. And a tree is a living thing! It goes through the same mishaps. It ages, suffers, experiences drought… A tree’s shape is the sculpture of its life, as a human body is a sculpture of a human life. Bodies evolve and their evolution is transmitted from one generation to the next. The same goes for trees: a seed holds within it the story of how it came to be. I find chestnut trees particularly moving – they can live to be a hundred years old. It is very moving to come a cross a chestnut tree: they're gnarled, life has passed through them, they fought to be here. In The Deceased's Umbel, I mention people who want to “live without the pain of living”. This is something a tree cannot escape: trees can't move - if lightning strikes, they will be struck, it is an unavoidable phenomenon. A tree is deeply rooted in its destiny.

I link this idea of transmission to the effects of metempsychosis you create in the show, between the narrator, the tree and the apple… Why resort to this reappearing face?

Theatre has an enchanted dimension, which I love: you are being told a story and all of the sudden the narrator becomes the object of the story, while still remaining herself. By reconciling two irreconcilable elements – plant and animal – catharsis is created. It’s about letting people believe that we are not doomed to the skin we were born in… Also, as a child, everyone wants to be a tree. For its strength, its grandeur, its ability to defy time.

You had previously worked with Stéphane Blanquet on Comment ai-je pu tenir là-dedans? (How Was I Ever Able to Live In There). Is it something in his aesthetics that inspires you to do shows for children?

It’s rather because I am loyal. For instance, I have been working with Jean-Luc Therminarias for the past fifteen years. These people are my family! I don't feel the need to change things up constantly. There are people I get on and work well with, we are friends and we want to fight for the same ideas: let's do it! This is what a company is about, what theatre is about. It's not about a single person but a group of people working together.

You mentioned earlier the transformations Chiara Collet will undergo throughout the show: how will the branches grow, how will the birds come to life?

Through a system of combined metempsychosis - an old optical device used in magic shows - to which I’m adding an invention that will allow astonishing transitions and crossfading effects. Once again, it’s to do with the idea of an enchanted theatre, which I love. As for Chiara Collet, she will have to find a way to achieve movement within her stillness - a key dimension for the technical device to work. Movement is fundamental, because it is life: an arm could be the collar of a branch, a spine could be a trunk. But as she will be embodying a tree, she will remain grounded… Again, there is this idea of a point of support - an idea I am interested in theatrically. 

Why is it so important for you to tell this story of transmission - that evokes the tragic dimension of existence - to children?

It's not tragic! Life isn't tragic! Children must experience death, and will soon enough. This experience can bring about a lot of joy, of life. Death isn’t odious, it’s just how it is. Everything related to such issues - what does it mean to live, what is a birth, what is a generation, what is transmission? – it’s all a principle of education. It’s funny to know that an apple holds an apple tree within itself. Moreover, children ask a lot of questions. They don't necessarily expect answers, but they expect their questions to be part of the succession of questions we have. We don’t have to provide answers. But if we set out looking for answers alongside children, even unsatisfactory ones, it sets something in motion. They understand that this question is one we ask ourselves; a dialogue is therefore possible. I find this  interesting with a show like My Lover Gnarled Apple Tree: the fact that children will not find answers to their questions, but will understand that they are part of the chain of questions adults ask themselves. They will also come to understand that adults try to cope by creating signs, symbols, myths, fables, in an attempt to explain the unexplainable, to speak the unspeakable, to show the unshowable, to render the insensitive sensitive, to explain chaos and immensity… What’s also interesting in a children's show is that parents who watch it with their kids understand that their children’s questions should not be separated from their own. As long as one questions oneself, one is alive! Is life a question? What is the question of the apple tree, the question of the apple? What is the question of the bird that eats the apple? What is the question of a falling leaf, the one posed by the shadow of a cloud over an apple tree? These elements surely ask questions too, because they are alive. I like children's questions, because this sort of questioning is what poetry is made of.