2023-05-10 16:08:06
Amnesia by Sarah M. © Filipe Roque
At the Théâtre de la Tempête, in Paris, the author and director presents a show on power and its effects, whose outlines are unfortunately too vague.
Basins of water placed on a large tarpaulin. A fruit basket in the center. And three bare-chested men ready to wash in almost complete darkness. Amnesia begins with a kind of ceremony. A woman rings a bell at the same time as she diffuses incense in the public, plunging the room into a liturgical atmosphere. The atmosphere is dark, vaporous, as if laden with heavy secrets.
This elaborate scenography (signed by Salma Bordes), where the light struggles to pierce the openings of the mashrabiyas arranged on either side of the stage or to shine behind the fringes of the curtain dividing in two the stage of the small room of the Theater of the storm (Paris 12e)the author and director Sarah M. intends to put it at the service of this story of power sip of blood and sins. The gesture impresses with the beauty of the images created and the performance of the actors but quickly drowns in a confusing plot.
The frame ofAmnesia is tied around three childhood friends : a general (Julian Breda), a political activist (Sofiane Bennani) and the king (Hedi Tillette of Clermont-Tonnerre). Quickly we understand that these ties of the past have been broken, giving way to an internal struggle between the three men. Love seems to have disappeared. Only hatred remains in its most venomous concentrate. Around them, their entourage (Hayet Darwich et Hnia El Amrani) remains helpless in the face of the horror that is to come.
Of this deep resentment, we perceive only the trace. Through the thick white smoke that never really leaves the room, a screen hung high up allows you to read the translation of the dialogues into Arabic as well as narrative elements. Notwithstanding these benchmarks, the springs of the plot remain opaque. The play goes back and forth between past and present without, however, shedding more light on the reasons for the rivalry between the characters. The effect produced ends up disorienting: “four years earlier”, “three years later”, we no longer really know what era we are in. Certain parts of the text sometimes turn out to be illegible, hidden by the light of the projectors. This back-and-forth exercise between the screen and the stage quickly turns out to be painful even if one understands its use – the use of Arabic in certain places of the plot is justified.
Sarah M.’s writing swells the room with good words but this literature sags when it comes to finding meaning in it. The major issues of the text remain in the state of concepts, forgetting to involve the characters. The latter are only shadows from which it is difficult to distinguish the contours of the personality. The king, the political activist, the general… each remains confined to his function. Sarah M. forgets the beings who hide behind it. A paradox when this political fable is embodied through three men for three forms of power. The people, meanwhile, only appear briefly during a scene of protest. The female characters played by Hayet Darwich and Hnia El Amrani have more thickness, revealing their strength and their fragility as the play progresses. Political fable or story of a hatred relegated to the intimate, Amnesia struggles to find the right cursor to dissipate the thick fog installed between the stage and the public.
Kilian Now – www.sceneweb.fr
AMNESIA
text and direction Sarah M.
with Sofiane Bennani, Julien Breda, Hayet Darwich, Hnia El Amrani, Sarah M., Hédi Tillette de Clermont-Tonnerre
dramaturgy Zelda Bourquin
scenography Salma Bordes
his Morning Poncet
lights Guillaume Tesson
costumes Léa Gadbois Lamer
translation Yto Regragui, Mina Rachid
production The Girls Office – Véronique Felenbok
administration Marie Ponçon
diffusion Christelle Lechatproduction La Compagnie Beïna in co-production with Le Théâtre des Quartiers d’Ivry – CDN du Val de Marne, Collectif 12, Studio Théâtre de Stains, L’Archipel-Granville – subsidized stage of national interest Art and Territory with the support of DRAC Ile-de-France, FAAR, DGCA, La Chartreuse – National Center for Performing Arts – Villeneuve-lez-Avignon, Plateaux Sauvages, Safran – approved stage of Amiens Métropole with support in residence of the Gérard Philipe Theater – CDN of Saint-Denis in co-production with the Théâtre de la Tempête.
Copi room • Duration: 1h45
Storm Theater
Until May 21, 2023
Tuesday to Saturday 8:30 p.m., Sunday 4:30 p.m.
1683745364
#Amnesia #Nebula #Sarah
