LE DIREKTØR (THE BOSS OF IT ALL)

Le Direktør for det hele (The Boss of it All) is one of Danish director Lars von Trier´s most ferocious comedies. The critics loved its acid and absurd humour when it was released back in 2006. Ten years later, Oscar Gómez Mata was given carte blanche by the filmmaker to adapt his film to the stage. It premièred at the La Bâtie Festival in Geneva. “Gómez Mata has reworked Lars von Trier´s script to portray the absurdity of the business world, the powers that be in theatre, and to explore what a sense of responsibility within a disoriented world ends up turning into. Without losing a single iota of the humour of the original script, this cinema-become-theatre plays with the uncertainties between what is true and what is false and has fun with the cowardice of contemporary power in a marvellously extravagant comedy”, says Eric Vautrin.
In the play, the director of an IT company pretends to be an ordinary employee so he doesn´t have to make any unpopular decisions. One day he decides to sell the company, so when the buyer asks to negotiate directly with the boss, he hires an unemployed actor to take his place. Here begins the great farce that highlights the absurdity of today’s business world.
“I was attracted to the central theme of this comedy because I find it is so utterly contemporary: RESPONSIBILITY. Who really complies with their responsibilities in today´s professional world? This script is a fierce satire of the business world; it contains a politically loaded attack on today´s professional world, that infinite realm of absurdity and of symbolic violence. It is therefore an “office comedy”, understanding the word “comedy” with its full semantic power: the workplace is a small theatrical stage, a play in three acts, the employees are the actors, trapped in their increasingly limited roles. This play about falsehood asks us: What is my priority? What should I preserve? What should I act on?”, Oscar Gómez Mata tells us.
ABOUT L´ALAKRAN The L´Alakran Company, founded in Geneva by the Basque director, actor, author, and stage designer, Oscar Gómez Mata, arouses radical emotions on the stage, creating spectacles that are playful, philosophical and always poetic. The political context, understood as a critical attitude, is inherent in his artistic project; to ask himself about the relationship between the individual and the collective without wanting to come up with answers or to fix the word into an ideology Since its creation in 1997, this company has shaken and provoked the public in order to arouse it and to tear it away from the loop of routine.
With a creative and expressive stamp that is entirely their own, whoever sees L´Alakran for the first time will never forget the experience. Rejecting tradition focused on the primacy of text, the company makes the text its own in order to pass it through the filter of their sensibilities and the context in which they develop the performances, turning it into a springboard, as they do with the other forms of scenic expression. 
According to philosopher and theatre critic Bruno Tackels: “L´Alakran´s performances transcend the boundaries of theatre and turn it into a profoundly free space, in which everything is possible. The stage becomes a nursery where the diverse ways in which the contemporary world affect us are dissected. A laboratory of our small pathologies of everyday life. Such as the capitalism that has infiltrated our veins and is slowly but surely dehumanizing us. In search of the antidote, desperately. If you have a clue, write to L´Alakran”.

Credits Direction: Oscar Gómez Mata
Assistant direction: Jean-Daniel Piguet
Performers: Pierre Banderet, Valeria Bertolotto, Claire Deutsch, Vincent Fontannaz, Christian Geffroy Schlittler, David Gobet, Camille Mermet, Aurélien Patouillard and Bastien Semenzato
Lighting and technical direction: Roberto Cafaggini
Sound: Fernando de Miguel
Set space: Daniel Zamarbide – Bureau and Vanessa Vicente
Costumes: Verónica Segovia and Marie Diatchenko
Mediation: Simon Hildebrand
Production and distribution: Barbara Giongo
Administration: Aymeric Demay
Danish translation: Catherine Lise Dubost
Original title: Direktøren for det hele de Lars von Trier, presented by Nordiska ApS, Copenhague
Production: Company L’Alakran
Coproduction: Théâtre du Loup - La Bâtie-Festival de Genève y Bonlieu Scène Nationale Annecy with the support of FEDER within the programme Interreg France-Suisse 2014-2020, Théâtre Benno Besson (Yverdon-les-Bains), TPR La Chaux-de-Fonds/Centre Neuchâtelois des Arts Vivants
With the support of: Fondation Leenaards, Pour-cent culturel Migros and Loterie Romande
The tour 2018 receives support from Pro Helvetia – Swiss Foundation for Culture and CORODIS (Commission Romande de Diffusion de Spectcales - Loterie Romande)
  This production won the 2016 Label+ Théâtre Romand contest in 2016
SPANISH PREMIÉRE
This show is included in Joven Bono Cultural. If you are 16 - 26 years old, sign up here for JOBO and come for free (Monday to Friday)



Other related activities:

WORKSHOP: Conscience and Thought of Action

Master Class

CINEMA SERIES

Ficha artística Dirección de escena y adaptación: Oscar Gómez Mata
Asistente para la dirección de escena: Jean-Daniel Piguet
Interpretación: Pierre Banderet, Valeria Bertolotto, Claire Deutsch, Vincent Fontannaz, Christian Geffroy Schlittler, David Gobet, Camille Mermet, Aurélien Patouillard y Bastien Semenzato
Iluminación y dirección técnica: Roberto Cafaggini
Diseño y técnica de sonido: Fernando de Miguel
Escenografía: Daniel Zamarbide – Bureau asistido por Vanessa Vicente
Vestuario: Verónica Segovia asistida por Marie Diatchenko
Mediación: Simon Hildebrand
Producción y difusión: Barbara Giongo
Administración: Aymeric Demay
Traducción del danés: Catherine Lise Dubost
Título original: Direktøren for det hele de Lars von Trier, presentado con el acuerdo de Nordiska ApS, Copenhague
Producción: Compañía L’Alakran
Coproducción: Théâtre du Loup - La Bâtie-Festival de Genève y Bonlieu Scène Nationale Annecy con el apoyo de FEDER dentro del programa Interreg France-Suisse 2014-2020, Théâtre Benno Besson (Yverdon-les-Bains), TPR La Chaux-de-Fonds/Centre Neuchâtelois des Arts Vivants
Con el apoyo de: Fondation Leenaards, Pour-cent culturel Migros y Loterie Romande
La gira 2018 recibe el apoyo de Pro Helvetia - Fundación suiza para la Cultura y de la CORODIS (Commission Romande de Diffusion de Spectcales - Loterie Romande)
  Espectáculo ganador del concurso Label+ Théâtre Romand en 2016

ESTRENO EN ESPAÑA