“Us, the Heroes” is the first play of the acclaimed French playwright Jean-Luc Lagarce to be staged in Estonia. The play features a company of travelling actors touring Europe some time in the twentieth century – although the author never specifies the time and the place, it can be concluded from several hints that the action takes place in Prague in 1938. The motto of the play has been borrowed from the diary of Franz Kafka from 1910: “The audience freezes as the train passes by.” The quotation of Kafka contains the key to understand the text, as Lagarce has not only been inspired by Kafka, but he has in fact constructed his play using different phrases and passages borrowed from Kafka’s diaries and other works – however, this dialogue between two authors has resulted in an entirely original play. Lagarce wrote “Us, the Heroes” in 1994 – only a year before he died – for his theatre company called La Roulotte. But the play is about more than just theatre and actors – it’s about being on the road, about the lack of a home or a homeland, about the threat of war, about the fragility of a human being against a ruthless system, and about people who are, among all the little things in the everyday life, in search of something big.

© Editions Les Solitaires Intempestifs

Awards:

The Estonian Annual Theatre Award for Best Production, 2010. Elmo Nüganen – the Estonian Annual Theatre Award for Best Director, 2010. Andrus Vaarik – the Estonian Annual Theatre Award for Best Supporting Actor, 2010.