Théâtre National de Bretagne
Direction Arthur Nauzyciel
Text by Joëlle Gayot / Translation by Jonas Parson
Imagine that at 19:00 on November 13th you were sitting in the La Paillette hall. On a black and grey stage, a white veil catches your attention, a persistent and resistant splash of light which neither eye nor mind can avoid.
The veil is worn by a young high-school student. Her name is Akila, just as it could have been Antigone, the ancient Greek heroine buried alive by Sophocles in retribution for defying her uncle Creon. You cannot give a ceremonial burial to the brother who broke the peace. You cannot disregard the law and go unpunished. Born on such tragic shores, Antigone is the symbol of resistance paying the full price for duly honouring a sibling.
On the dark stage whose blind spots might be revealed by this “simple piece of cloth”, Antigone – now Akila, is a child of our times. Times of conflict, of radicalisation and of extremes. Times where nuance is no longer an option. Times where you must be one side or the other (never in between) of ideas, positions, decisions, with no option for debate or change. Akila, on the morning after her brother commits a terrorist attack, does the unimaginable. The fiction sets the action. The school has gathered to mourn for a minute of silence, and cutting through the silence, the unbearable whiteness of the veil suddenly covering Akila’s head. We can easily imagine the consequences. Stunned teachers, exclaiming students, and a punishment delivered by the principal, our own Creon in suit and tie. The girl is suspended, barred from class, “the equivalent to Antigone’s burial” for Marine Bachelot Nguyen.
It is a safe bet that the show that you should/would have seen in the La Paillette hall would have been met with agitation, turmoil and reflexion from the audience, mirroring that on stage. A safe bet that the six actors and musician, moving back and forth from a table to the revolving proscenium would have stunned you by venturing into areas often deemed too risky to explore. By embracing turmoil, doubt, ambiguity, the unnameable, the unthinkable. This incandescent theatrical adventure, whose text, written after the 2015 terrorist attacks, was recently caught up by the beheading on 16th October 2020 of history teacher Samuel Paty. But it is the mission of public theatre to turn to fiction in order to create shared truths, where all points of view, from the laudable to the unavowable, are expressed, confronted and gauged.
The play has merit in using laughter and affirming light-heartedness as a counterpoint to the darkest tragedy. “This is not a sombre show” reassures Marine Bachelot Nguyen. The complexity of the thoughts at play here should have burst forth as fireworks. Such is surely the gist of this play which you won’t have seen, but which should have more or less concluded with “But death is no heroism, no, death is no heroism.” Those should have been the closing words. Just about.