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25 MARCH - 28 MARCH 2009 Nature Theater of Oklahoma No Dice THEATRE Performance in English with French subtitles. Duration: 4H00 including interval and snack break. No Dice sees the actors of the Nature Theater of Oklahoma coming to blows with the events of everyday life. There are two secrets behind the show's success: its transformation of the most banal, boring facts of everyday life into works of art suffused with the grandeur of a heroic epic. And the truly exceptional performances of its actors. Originally conceived as an experiment in "non-literary" theatre, No Dice is an oral work in the great tradition of Antiquity. A modern Odyssey whose fine narrative thread is an obstinate, epic quest for a unique experience of spiritual transformation, pursued through 100 hours of filtered telephone conversations. A superb, raw performance from a cast of constantly-evolving characters engaged in a ferocious combat to convert the coarse matter of their lives into the stuff of creative art, generating a pervasive tension that grips actors and spectators alike. No Dice is the discovery and apprenticeship of the sublime, heroic dimension of everyday language, the "cosmic breath" that passes unnoticed and can set the most banal conversations alight. Masters of an electric, almost physical art highlighting the voice and body alike, the show's multiple actors and performers invest the stage with genuine bravura: each performance is a tour de force, an examination of the art of the theatre, the generation of art in its very absence. Just as a simple velvet curtain can transform an ordinary podium into a theatrical stage, the cast shows how a strange hat or a deep frown can transform a banal telephone conversation into the stuff of epics. The Nature Theatre of Oklahoma takes its name from a chapter title in Kafka's dreamlike last, unfinished work, Amerika. Kafka's "great Theatre of Oklahoma" is a dream of a space, and a theatrical form, in which the indoor and outdoor cohabit. No Dice echoes the spirit of the placard read by Kafka's hero Karl, announcing the launch of the Theatre of Oklahoma: "If you want to be an artist, join our company! … But hurry, so that you get in before midnight. At midnight the doors will be shut and never opened again!"
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