Et soudain, des nuits d'eveil (And Suddenly, Nights of Awakening) (review)

A Tibetan horseman (Duccio Bellugio) in the Théâtre du Soleil’s production of Hélène Cixous’s Et soudain, des nuits d’éveil, directed by Ariane Mnouchkine. Photo: Martine Franck.

Marie-Paul Ramo and Hélène Cinque in the Théâtre du Soleil’s production of Hélène Cixous’s Et soudain, des nuits d’éveil, directed by Ariane Mnouchkine. Photo: Martine Franck.

The latest collaboration between Ariane Mnouchkine and Hélène Cixous focuses on the current political dilemma of the exiled Tibetans. Through an expository style typical of both director and writer, this play dissects the plight of Tibet, exposes the political stakes and obstacles, and gives voice to possible solutions and hope. Commendable in its ambition, this production nevertheless suffers from heavy-handed didacticism. Cixous’s scenario is inspired by the recent demonstration in Paris when 150 illegal immigrants took over the Église St. Bernard to challenge the government’s position on immigration and nationality. The drama on stage mirrors the reality of French-Arab tensions and the theatre constitutes a mise en abyme of the city of Paris, a prominent international site for East/West negotiations.

The play opens with a gradual building of percussion (performed by Mnouchkine veteran Jean-Jacques Lemêtre), providing an evocatively sonorous ambiance and heralding a spectacularly beautiful Tibetan dance scene. Two other choreographed Tibetan interludes take place, evenly spaced during the four hours of the performance, providing tangible evidence of a specific cultural heritage worthy of defending. But if these elements serve to put Tibet on each spectator’s imaginary map, the theatrical space (designed by Guy-Claude François) works counter to this, demonstrating how difficult it is to portray this people in diaspora. The entire play takes place in a Buddhist temple, normally a place of prayer and meditation, but in this case the scene of perpetual havoc. The only scenery consists of huge Buddha eyes staring back at the audience, with a small Buddhist altar below, and the only prop is an audaciously red velvet French fauteuil next to a standard French telephone. Located down stage right, it serves as an ostentatiously bourgeois Western gateway to the sacred eastern space. Tibet itself is referred to several times but always in terms of its large size on a map. In this way it is reduced to geographical measurements that remain impossible to grasp in the context of the play. The Buddhist temple is embedded in the reality of the actual theatre and the overarching context of a staged political sit-in.

It is in this problematic space that the main drama unfolds. The main theme of the play is the inefficaciousness of international negotiations to reach a solution to the Tibet problem and in parallel fashion, the helplessness of goodwill organizations to aid in the process. As for the negotiators, they are lost in perpetual cacophony. We do not actually see the meetings but reports are given in the temple cum waiting room. The most important encounter will apparently not take place and so all parties must wait, tucked away in the crevices of a sacred no-man’s-land. A good deal of English and Tibetan are used, not all of which is translated, thus furthering the sense of frustration and noncomprehension. The negotiations that do take place are qualified as arid and ineffectual talks that result in diplomatic quagmire. The goodwill organizations are no more successful in finding a solution to the Tibetan plight. They are portrayed as laughably naive groups that suffer from a hopelessly occidental perspective and are bogged down in personal preoccupations and internal struggle due to ideological conflicts.

The theatre’s concierge, Mme. Gabrielle (Myriam Aencot), dominates the action as a self-appointed vigilante. She is a loud, gun-bearing matron in army boots whose character screams of Western...