Le Commerce de Pain : Oratorio
Discover the oratorio version of the play Le Commerce de Pain, as part of the solidarity week organized by the town hall of the 2nd/3rd arrondissement of Marseille, on 28 November at 4 p.m.
About this event
Since September 2025, in the Belle de Mai neighborhood, Organon Art Cie has been inviting children, teenagers, women, mothers, and residents of the 3rd arrondissement to collectively rewrite Le Commerce de Pain by Bertolt Brecht.
In 1962, Matthias Langhoff and Manfred Karge staged a montage of unpublished fragments by Brecht: Le Commerce de Pain. This didactic play was performed in Germany and then, in 1972, during the Berliner’s tour of the red belt in the Parisian communist suburbs.
Le Commerce de Pain does not tell the story of an exceptional injustice, but of an ordinary chain of violence in which debt and individualism rank people’s lives. In a city in crisis, Madame Queck, a widow and mother of five, is evicted by her employer, who is himself bound by debt. This news item becomes a portrait of an economy of coercion in which precarious neighbors, unemployed people, and small business owners act out of fear of disappearing from society. When you have nothing to pawn, you mortgage your life. Faced with this economic brutality, the fable asks us: who owns the debt?
Following the success of Mère(s), the Organon company is once again inviting residents of the Belle de Mai neighborhood to make a Bertolt Brecht text their own, through a combination of documentary work and rewriting.
Today, we are presenting the oratorio version of the play: the text, music, and songs. After the play, we will share refreshments together, provided by the town hall.
The final stage of the work will take place in June 2027 at the Théâtre de la Criée.
The performers: Djaloud Ibrwahima, Nawoid Ahamada, Maya Ahamada, Morjane Bourriche, Dounia Brahimi, Sophia M’Sili Saidi, Amar Yasser Iskandar, Ali Ahamada Mbaé, Doria Ouarti, Farida Benkhelfallah, Rachida Rahmouni, Fatima Zohra Mammar, Ines Sabbagh, Dalila Feddaoui, Neva Kaya, Meriem Bouderbala, Fadhela Mouas, Layna Bengouia, Mey Chelbi, Ouafa Labbani, Cédric Fiandino, Gaspard Dupraz, Paloma Iorga.
The Vincent Beer-Demander plucked-string orchestra and soloists Roman Panzer, Sacha Panzer, Richard Dubelski, Pierrot Vagner, Alexandre Narboni, Salomé Paris-Drieux, Alexandre Beer-Demander, Guillaume Beer-Demander, Cathy Arquez, Milan Vivodtzev-Vidal
The Organon team: Valérie Trebor, Fabien-Aissa Busetta, Aurélien Desclozeaux, Vincent Beer-Demander, Roman Panzer, Lucile Oza, Elise Havard dit Duclos, Katia Saleh, Julia Rostagni, Pierre Gondard, Chedly Attalah, Jean-Hughes Molcard, Basile Bouteau, Maya Ahamada, Nawoid Ahamada.
Co-produced by: Théâtre National de Marseille La Criée
In partnership with the Town Hall of the 2nd/3rd arrondissement, Friche Belle de Mai, students and the plucked-string orchestra of the Pierre Barbizet Conservatory of Marseille, Radio Grenouille
With support from the Fondation de France, Le Fonds de dotation Choeur à l'ouvrage, La Fondation Voix.es vues d'ailleurs, the Région Sud-PACA, DRAC PACA, Ville de Marseille, Département 13, Préfecture à l’égalité des chances, Politique de la ville, Caisse des Écoles, Cité éducative Belle de Mai.
Development support: in’8 circle - Maison de Production (Anne Rossignol & Dominique Pranlong Mars)
Organized by: organon art compagnie
We partly follow in the tradition of documentary theater, which regularly takes the form of an investigation; its aim is to present testimonies and documents as directly as possible. This approach seeks to offer a reality stripped of intent; our aim here is to reveal connections that had previously been invisible.
Documentary theater
asserts that reality,
no matter how absurdly
it disguises itself, can be explained in the smallest detail.
Peter Weiss
Documentary theater prompts a redefinition of theater’s place in the sociopolitical sphere and a reinterpretation of theater as a public institution, as a forum for civic debate. Creating the most intense connection with world events and approaching indexicality while doing so as an artist remain the field of experimentation proposed by this kind of stage production. Starting from small-scale stories, telling the larger story, and adapting residents’ words to create documented fiction.
The company seeks to produce work that questions our relationship with History and our place within it.
https://www.helloasso.com/associations/organon-art-compagnie
