THE CHARACTERS OF THOUGHT

Text, painting and director: Valère Novarina

Union des Contraires, Paris, France

Director: Valère Novarina

France with Hungarian simultaneous interpretation.

3 hours with 1 breaks.

“Through all these accidents, the essential expression remains, and in many scenes, the most beautiful thing is the impassivity of the single mask, uttering words both hilarious and serious. 

This is comparable only to the mineral nature of the skeleton concealed beneath animal flesh, whose tragicomic value has always been recognized.” (Alfred Jarry)

And so emerges an archipelago of abrupt, comic, contrasting scenes that unleash themselves, liberate themselves, and announce the good news of the theater: man has not yet been captured! 

The actor-trapeze artist reinvents space and language with every breath. 

The Characters of Thought sometimes tear through space like the blank page of the mind. Space changes everything. Everything must move from stage left to stage right in the whirl of an animal magnetism. 

Is the world rushing towards its destruction or its renewal? 

The painting remains on the ground like overturned words. 

“Men rarely speak to themselves and never to others of things that have not been given names.”  (Joseph a Floribus)

Creative staff of Union des Conttraires 

Actors: 

Valentine Catzeflis, Armelle Dumoulin, Aurelien Fayet, Manuel Lelièvre, Sylvain Levitte, Claire Sermonne, René Turquois, Valérie Vinci. 

Musicians: 

Christian Paccoud, Mathias Lévy 

Technicians: 

Elie Hourbeigt (stage), Thomas Marchalot (lighting), Lisa Ravelomanantsoa (video), Richard Pierre (Technical coordination and production) 

Creative stuff:

Stage designer: Emmanuel Clolus 

Costume designer: Charlotte Villermet 

Composer: Christian Paccoud 

Dramaturge: Pascal Omhovere 

Artistic collaborator: Céline Schaeffer 

Main Stage

13 April 2026, 19:00

Not available

14 April 2026, 19:00

Not available

Valère Novarina

(1947-2026)

Valère Novarina was born in 1947. He studied philosophy and philology in Paris and then wrote a treatise on Antonin Artaud. He spent an entire year reading and studying Dante’s Divine Comedy. He planned to write a doctoral dissertation on Adolphe Appiá and then on Louis de Funes. Since 1986, he has been producing his works. Most of his productions have been performed as part of the Festival of Avignon. He also brings his talents as a graphic artists and painter to his work in the theater, creating original and poetic productions. His works have been translated into many of the languages of Europe and are also performed all over the continent, and also in the United States, Russia, and Latin America. In 2006, his play L’Espace furieux (“Furious Space”) was added to the repertoire of the Comédia Française, with Novarina as director. In 2011, his play Le Vrai sang (“Real Blood”), which was performed in the Odéon Theater, won the Production of the Year prize in France. In 2009, working together with the Csokonai Theater company, he presented his play L’Opérette imaginaire (“The Imaginary Operetta”), which was performed on five successive evenings in the Odéon Theater in Paris.

Gallery