La grande et fabuleuse histoire du commerce

“The history of commerce is the history of mankind”, or so Joël Pommerat seems to be telling us in his latest production, which presents us with two stories playing out in two different eras.

In the first, we find ourselves in the 1960s with four experienced salesmen trying to initiate a young idealist into the tricks of the trade. Influenced by the ideals of May ’68, the youngster refuses to accept the laws of the market, but is driven to the verge of suicide when he is forced to choose between being unemployed or being unethical.

In the second story, which is set forty years later in the early 21st century, the one-time idealist has metamorphosed into an all-powerful businessman and his four former trainers, bankrupt and unmanned by the labor market, ask for his help.

Pommerat’s profoundly humanistic theater uses the parable as a device for talking about the end of ideology and the hegemony of capitalism, about solidarity and the limits of morality. His work seems to pose a timely rhetorical question: ultimately, might it be our very existence that we’re all trading in?