The airport of Byblos, which exists only in waiting.
Set design for Intervalle, a play written and directed by Constance Noujaim for the Compagnie du Billet d'Or. A hundred square metres of stage for a purgatory-airport, suspended out of time.
In Intervalle, the airport of Byblos is no longer a place of transit. It is a suspended purgatory, where no plane will ever leave again. On a hundred square metres, several travellers cross paths without being able to depart.
Three devices for one density.
The glowing gothic arches bear the names of the cities of the journey — Carthage, Rome, New York. They are the boarding gates to nowhere. Their inner orange light, mingled with smoke, evokes both the warmth of a lost hearth and a memory that smoulders.
Here purgatory is not a place — it is a time.
What remains when one can no longer leave.
Classical relief sculptures — an ancient face, reaching hands, a hand holding a candle — people the walls like the ghosts of vanished civilisations. The airport benches rest on human feet carved in raw stone: they speak of the human still walking, while everything around collapses.
The play speaks of travel and memory. Of waiting as a condition. In the background, a painted canvas shows a rock in the mist — a country lost, or one that can no longer be reached.
