Directed by Didier Flamand
Adapted for stage by Alexis Lloyd
Based on La Chute by ALBERT CAMUS, copyright 1956, Editions Gallimard
“You can never really prove anybody’s innocence, but you can be sure we’re all guilty. Every man bears witness to the crimes of all the others.” — Jean-Baptiste Clamence, The Fall by Albert Camus
Join us for FIAF’s first live theatrical stream from Tinker Auditorium!
In Alexis Lloyd’s theatrical adaptation of Nobel Prize-winning French author Albert Camus’s The Fall, New York-based, Belgian-born actor Ronald Guttman takes on the role of anguished, exiled Parisian lawyer Jean-Baptiste Clamence, transporting his audience to the last circle of Hell: Amsterdam’s red-light district, circa 1956.
Related in casual conversation to an unexpected interlocutor and set against the backdrop of post-Second World War Europe, this adaptation of Camus’s last complete work of fiction invokes the fall of man from the Garden of Eden as it explores themes of culpability, shame and regret. Escaping the crowded streets awash in neon light at a bar called Mexico City, Clamence reveals, in the form of a 60-minute monologue, the outcome of an event whose moral uncertainty has transformed him into a judge-repentant and postmodern prophet of the human condition. In this quiet and elegant production directed by Didier Flamand, the audience become Clamence’s confessors, his mirror, and he becomes theirs.
Guttman, a recognizable presence on stage, screen, and television whose credits include Mad Men, Homeland, and the recent Amazon hit series Hunters with Al Pacino, has presented developmental readings of The Fall with Naked Angels, En Garde Arts, and as part of the “A Stranger in the City” Camus Festival celebrating the 70th anniversary of Camus’ singular post-war visit to New York.
The performance will be followed by a Q&A with Guttman, moderated by twentieth-century historian Dr. Stephen Petrus.
Performance: 60 minutes
Post-Show Q&A: 20 minutes
Ronald Guttman
Ronald Guttman is a theater, film, and television actor, originally from Brussels, and active in both America and Europe.
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Guttman’s most recent films include, Black Magic for White Boys, Long Time No See, and the upcoming The Sister of the Groom with Alicia Silverstone. Recent film and TV credits include: On the Basis of Sex, the Netflix/BBC series Black Earth Rising with Michaela Coel, and Mr. & Mrs. Adelman. Other film credits include: Avalon, Green Card, The Hunt for Red October, and August Rush. In addition, he has guest-starred in numerous television series, including: Preacher, The Good Wife, Mad Men, Baskets, Blue Bloods, and Homeland.
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Dr. Stephen Petrus
Dr. Stephen Petrus is a historian at LaGuardia and Wagner Archives at LaGuardia Community College, who specializes in twentieth-century U.S. urban and cultural history.
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In 2015, Petrus curated the exhibition Folk City: New York and the Folk Music Revival at the Museum of the City of New York and co-authored the accompanying book, published by Oxford University Press. The following year he co-curated the festival Camus: A Stranger in the City with the Albert Camus Estate to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Camus’s visit to New York. His essays have been published in Studies in Popular Culture, New York History, and Los Angeles Review of Books, and his research has been supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Pew Foundation. He is a member of the New York Academy of History. His next book will be a history of Greenwich Village in the 1950s and 60s.
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Didier Flamand
Didier Flamand is a French actor, author, and theater director.
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He founded a theater company directing his own original material, Beware of Zeppelins (Peter Brook-Bouffes du Nord, National Theater, Comic Opera, and an European Tour), Society 1 (Modern Art Museum), and The Manufacture (Disused warehouse) where he met Ronald Guttman.
He has also directed opera, including Puccini’s Manon Lescaut (Torino & Sevilla), as well as an adaptation of Richard III, Cacodémon King (Pier 64 New-York).
In 1995 his first short movie was nominated for an Oscar and won the French Cesar for best short movie.
Since then he has performed in many play, including works by Sartre, Schnitzler, Jelinek, Ibsen, and Peter Shaffer; and worked with filmmakers such as Mathieu Kassovitz (Crimson Rivers), Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire), Christophe Baratier (The Chorus), Luis Buñuel, Marguerite Duras, Raoul Ruiz, Claire Denis, and Michael Haneke.
In the US, he has appeared in The Château (Jesse Peretz), Merci Dct Rey (Andrew Litvack), Factotum (Bent Hammer), Love / Zenith / Allure (Vladan Nikolic), as well as Parallel Dreams at the Figment Festival. Parallel Dreams was directed by Aleksandar Kostic and co-starred Joan La Barbara and Kathleen Supové.
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Alexis Lloyd
Paris-born New York-based, Alexis Lloyd is a writer, director, executive film producer, and the former CEO of Pathé UK.
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His recent credits include writer & director of the web series GROUP. Previously he was CEO of Pathé UK in London, where he oversaw the production and distribution of over 90 feature films. Lloyd was the Executive Producer of 9 feature films (including An Ideal Husband by O. Parker, Topsy-Turvy by Mike Leigh, Love’s Labours Lost by Kenneth Brannagh, and The Claim by Michael Winterbottom). Lloyd wrote, produced and directed the feature film 30 Beats (2012, Roadside Attractions/Lionsgate), a free adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde.
He is a member of the Actors Studio (New York, Playwrights/ Directors Unit), of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), and of the Académie des arts et techniques du cinéma (César) in France.
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