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Le Système de Ponzi
David Lescot
Actes du théâtre n° 53.[ imprimer ]
Le Système de Ponzi recounts the life of Charles Ponzi, an Italian who emigrated to the United States in the early 20th century. After experiencing a number of setbacks over a 15-year period he embarked on a financial scam in Boston - guaranteeing 50% interest in 45 days, reimbursing the interest to the first subscribers with the money deposited by later subscribers - making him a millionaire for a year. Ponzi was eventually caught by finance inspectors, sentenced, and ended his life bankrupt in an old people’s home in Brazil.

“David Lescot has the expertise of a one-man-band, writing, directing and composing. […] His appetite for the theater has clearly given him a powerful personal style in which he often ‘removes’ the audience from its mental comfort zone.”
Emmanuelle Bouchez, Télérama, October 10, 2009

“Lescot transports you into an extravagant and totally anachronistic human species which shakes and snakes through the knots made by a historical narrative blended in with a personal one.”
Daniel Conrod, Télérama, October 25, 2008

Opening at the Théâtre de l’Union – CDN Limoges, January 17-19, 2012; January 25th-February 10th at the Théâtre de la Ville – Paris; February 17th at La Halle aux Grains – scène nationale de Blois; March 13th-17th at La Manufacture – CDN de Nancy; March 21st-23rd at the Comédie de Saint-Etienne; April 11th-26th at the Théâtre National de Strasbourg.
Director and composer: David Lescot. Musicians: Clément Landais, Virgile Vaugelade. Set design: Alwyne de Dardel. Lighting: Joël Hourbeigt. Costumes: Sylvette Dequest. Props: Philippe Binard.
Cast: Scali Delpeyrat, Marie Dompnier, Odja Llorca, Elisabeth Mazev, Céline Milliat-Baumgartner, Charlie Nelson, Jean-Christophe Quenon

Characters : 17 women - 54 men - 17 women and 54 men who can be played by 4 women and 3 men
Actes Sud-Papiers

Montreal-Atlanta.
Ponzi in a train, accompanied by 5 illegal Italian immigrants.
The train is heading for New York state.


INSPECTOR STEVENSON Customs Inspector Stevenson. Your papers please.
PONZI Here are my papers, Customs Inspector.
INSPECTOR STEVENSON And these people?
PONZI Well actually, strictly speaking, these people are not currently in possession of such documents.
INSPECTOR STEVENSON I’ll have to interrogate them.
PONZI They’re not in possession of the rudiments of the English language either.
INSPECTOR STEVENSON They’re acquaintances of yours.
PONZI Hardly at all, as it were.
INSPECTOR STEVENSON But you’re accompanying them.
PONZI Helpfulness runs in my blood. I ran into an old schoolmate in the train station who placed these five poor pilgrims from my country in my care. I could see the hope in their eyes. He asked me to make sure they didn’t get lost on the way. What am I getting out of it, and what is it going to cost me?
INSPECTOR A lot.