Le tigre bleu de l’Euphrate : a beautiful depiction of a conflicted Alexander the Great taking stock of his life at the height of a feverish delirium
Le tigre bleu de l’Euphrate is a solo show capturing the emotional, agonizing final night of Alexander the Great, as he lays dying of a fever.Written by Laurent Gaudé and brought to life in a beautiful performance by Emmanuel Schwartz, the performance is a monologue and meditation as the first man to make a serious effort at conquering the known world faces his own demise. Over the course of the hour and a half–long show, Alexander reflects upon both his mortality and immortality, slipping into despair as disease claims him, but finding solace in his military exploits that will make him as immortal as the soil beneath his feet.
Le tigre bleu isn’t simply a history lesson though. While it does spend some time recounting his campaigns in Persia, his founding of Alexandria, his battles in the Indus River Valley, and his life in Babylon, it is a much more introspective look at Alexander than offered in history books. We can’t know what Alexander was thinking in his final hours, so playwright Gaudé creates an Alexander grappling with guilt over the countless lives lost on his grand campaigns, but also one assured of his everlasting fame from those same battles that haunt him at the end of his life. …