Théâtre National de Bretagne
Direction Arthur Nauzyciel
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Festival TNB
Création
Denied the right to bury her dead brother, Antigone defied the law – and paid a heavy price. Entombed alive, this tragic figure would later become a symbol of the Resistance, but also of the excesses of a movement which placed the personal above the general interest. In this new work, Marine Bachelot Nguyen gives life to Akila, a young girl of the 2010s who takes up the same torch, in terrible circumstances. During a minute’s silence held at her school to pay respect to the victims of a recent attack, she ties her hair in a white scarf, revealing herself as the sister of one of the terrorists. Shock, scandal, expulsion… and the starting point for Bachelot Nguyen’s piece as it courageously tackles the complexity of a situation where the colonial past, discrimination, police violence, and racism are all inseparable from everyday life. Can we keep calm as we interrogate the idea of the ’universalist’ utopia so often spoken of today?
Marine Bachelot Nguyen is a writer, a stage director, and the co-founder of the company Lumière d’août, created in 2004 in Bretagne. Her piece Les Ombres et les lèvres was created in 2016 at TNB. Akila also sees three former students of the TNB School of Dramatic Arts take the stage: Damien Gabriac, Nikita Faulon and Arnold Mensah.