Seuls en Scène 2025 presents Une Ombre Vorace by Mariano Pensotti
September 12 • 8:00 pm
Free
“El ser humano se enfrenta al sentido de su existencia por etapas, como cuando se asciende una montaña. Cuando un alpinista de alto nivel conoce a su doble en el cine, realidad y ficción se rozan.”
In the same way that one climbs a mountain, humans come to face the meaning of their existence in stages. When a high-level mountaineer meets his silver-screen counterpart, reality and fiction collide.
Jean Vidal, a mountain climber nearing the end of his career, decides one day to undertake the ascent of Annapurna in Nepal, where his father died some 30 years before; Vidal’s true story is adapted for the cinema. From there, Mariano Pensotti intertwines levels of fiction through the monologues of Vidal and Roux, the actor chosen to play Vidal’s role and who himself speaks of his own father.
In Une Ombre vorace, shooting a movie and climbing a mountain become two sides of human existence. Pensotti, who is a director, filmmaker, and founder of Grupa Marea, likes grand epic narratives where intimate stories echo each other and collide to unveil entire chapters of a forgotten history: like a mountain which, when the ice thaws, brings the bodies of the missing to the surface.
In partnership with Festival d’Avignon 2025. Pièce commune is a program that aims to create a pocket repertoire for artists whose work is regularly showcased on major European stages. Every year, at the invitation of the Festival d’Avignon and the Wiener Festwochen (Vienna, Austria), one artist creates a play destined to tour throughout Europe and to be performed in very different spaces.
Tickets
Free and open to the public; advance tickets required. Tickets available in late August.
Reserve free tickets through University Ticketing
Performance Details
Show performed in French with English supertitles. Duration: 1 hour, 20 minutes.
See all shows in 2025 French Theater Festival
Directions
Get directions to the Wallace Theater, located on the Forum level of the Lewis Arts complex, and find other venue information for the arts complex.
Accessibility
The Wallace Theater is an accessible venue. The show will be performed in French with English supertitles.
Visit our Venues and Studios section for accessibility information about our various locations. Guests in need of access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at 609-258-5262 or email LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week in advance of the event date.
Additional Media
Meeting with Mariano Pensotti at the 2024 Avignon Festival
Photo Gallery
Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage for Festival d’Avignon
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Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage for Festival d’Avignon
Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage for Festival d’Avignon
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Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage for Festival d’Avignon
Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage for Festival d’Avignon
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Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage for Festival d’Avignon
Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage for Festival d’Avignon
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Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage for Festival d’Avignon
Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage for Festival d’Avignon
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Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage for Festival d’Avignon
Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage for Festival d’Avignon
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Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage for Festival d’Avignon
Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage for Festival d’Avignon
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Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage for Festival d’Avignon
Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage for Festival d’Avignon
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Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage for Festival d’Avignon
Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage for Festival d’Avignon
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Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage for Festival d’Avignon
Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage for Festival d’Avignon
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Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage for Festival d’Avignon
About the Artists
Photo credit: Catalina Bartolome
Mariano Pensotti is an Argentine playwright and director who lives and works in Buenos Aires. He studied cinema, visual arts, and theatre in South America and Europe. As his country was going through a great economic and political crisis, Pensotti founded Grupo Marea in 2005 with scenographer Mariana Tirante, musician Diego Vainer, and artistic producer Florencia Wasser. He creates scenic performances for which he writes all the texts and often performs in situ to question the border between fiction and reality.
Photo credit: Natacha Lamblin
Cédric Eeckhout has worked as an actor on stage with Anne-Cécile Vandalem, Falk Richter (Rausch, Play loud), Thomas Ostermeier (La mouette, Retour à Reims), Christiane Jatahy (Ithaque), Gaia Saitta (Fear and Desire), Sanja Mitrovic (do you still love me), Mikaël Serre (les enfants du soleil) and, most recently, Mariano Pensotti (Ombre Vorace), among others. He has worked in cinema with artists including Rithy Panh, Laurent Tirard, Thomas Vinterberg and others. Héritage is his second show as author and director, following The Quest, an English-language stand-up about the disintegration of Europe, in which his actual mother accompanied him on stage for the first time. The Quest premiered in Belgium and was performed in Spain, Sweden, Romania, Hungary. He is also the director of the documentary Jo, which follows his mother’s life during their first creation when she was caring for her husband, who was living with Alzheimer’s disease.
Photo courtesy Elios Noël
Elios Noël trained at the TNB school in Rennes and performed several times under the direction of Stanislas Nordey. He also appeared in shows by Éléonore Weber and Patricia Allio. Noël has worked with the companies Lumière d’août and La nuit surprise par le jour and with Myriam Marzouki, Christine Letailleur, Pascal Kirsch, David Geselson, Nicolas Stemann, Jeanne Desoubeaux, and Caroline Guiela Nguyen. He has appeared in Je m’appelle Vanessa by Laurent Quinton; Rendre une vie vivable n’a rien d’une question vaine at the 2007 Avignon Festival and 2012 in Primer mundo; Fraternity-Fantastic Tale at the 2021 Avignon Festival; and Neanderthal at the 2023 Avignon Festival, among others. In addition, Noël has recorded numerous fictions for France Culture with Cedric Aussir and has appeared in films by Justine Triet, Melisa Godet, Aurélia Hollart, Camille Fleury and Pierre-Emmanuel Fillet.
Production Credits
With Cédric Eeckhout, Élios Noël
Text and direction Mariano Pensotti
Set and costume design Mariana Tirante
Dramaturgy Aljoscha Begrich
Music and sound Diego Vainer
Lighting David Seldes
Artistic consultant Florencia Wasser (Grupo Marea)
Translation Christilla Vasserot
Artistic collaboration Laurent Berger
Assistant directors Juan Francisco Reato, Edward Fortes
Tour manager Lolita Chapron
Executive production General Manager Christophe Eustache
Sound Manager Sébastien Dorn
Production
Production Festival d’Avignon
Coproduction Wiener Festwochen (Vienne), Théâtre du Bois de l’Aune/Biennale d’Aix-en-Provence, Éclat-Centre National des Arts de la Rue et de l’Espace Public-Aurillac, CCAS les activités sociales de l’énergie, La Vignette Scène conventionnée Université Paul-Valéry (Montpellier), Théâtre de Grasse, Théâtre du Champ au Roy (Guingamp)
With the support of Onda – Office national de diffusion artistique
Residence Centre social Espace Pluriel, salle de la Barbière (Avignon)
Acknowledgements Théâtre de la Cité Internationale (Paris), Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe (Paris)
Special Thanks
Léa Dony, Amina Shabani & Claire Massy Paoli.