la revue de presse - Le Théâtre du Soleil

open society paneldefinitely seen by the audiences, and we’veattracted very, very large audiences, becauseobviously in these villages there’s not much todo, so everybody comes and watches.There have been extremely few negativereactions, and the few which have occurred— in the east and the south of the country— were in areas where the coalitions arefighting the war and where there is politicalresistance to elections. In other words, it is notresistance to theater itself, but to the messagethat we were delivering with it. But even thatwas very, very rare. Luckily we haven’t had anyreal problems. It has been accepted by mostAfghans. For the Afghan theater groups, thiswas also a new experience. When they cameback from this, it was like a theater revolution,because they’ve gone everywhere in the country,and everybody loves theater now. They’recoming back again, we’re going to send thetroupes back around the country in summer2005.mnouchkine During our workshop, someof the actors wanted to do an improvisationdealing with the Taliban, using the Balinesemasks we brought with us from France. Mauricehere was the only French actor in thisenormous improvisation, which was otherwisedone only with Afghan actors. Maurice and Iwere telling them yes, but with these masks,you have to remember that this is not a realTaliban. It is this mask, with specific charactertraits, and you would have to imaginethat these characters are playing the Taliban,that they are performing a play about the Taliban— because, of course, they are ridiculouspersonages, and ridicule is very precious inthat situation. But the actors wanted to actuallyplay the Taliban. Maurice said, “No, I’mnot doing it. If it’s going to be real Taliban,we’re not doing it.” Suddenly they understood.And they accepted it. So they built the improvisationaround the scenario that a bunch ofBalinese peasants — Balinese because thesewere Topeng masks — were performing a playcalled The Defeat of the Taliban. It started withthat premise, and it was so beautiful becausethe peasants received texts of their play, TheDefeat of the Taliban, and immediately twoof them wanted to leave the stage, saying, “Idon’t want to play The Defeat of the Taliban!”The improvisation was totally cathartic; theimprovisation itself became the defeat of theTaliban. I don’t remember exactly how it happened,because the improvisation was suchchaos, but all of a sudden — and we couldn’tstop — Maurice was beaten up in the middleof the whole thing. He played the peasants’director, the stage director, and he was tryingto give direction to one of the “peasant” actors,but he couldn’t — they had become Taliban.Finally this woman who was among the actorsprevailed; she took a whip, the whip that theTaliban famously wielded to beat women, andsuddenly she turned it against the Taliban.The audience was shouting and yelling androaring with laughter, and something happenedat that moment, really.richter Clearly, we have to continue supportingculture in this setting. Poetry is verywell developed and entrenched in Afghan cultureand there are traditions of Afghan poetrythat blend with Persian poetry. A thousandyears ago there were epics, different forms ofstorytelling — it’s not theater, but in any event,what we’ve seen is that culture, and the peoplewho are artists, have a status, a social status,and a respect. They are allowed a protectedspace, a special status. It may be a vulnerablesituation, but it compels us to continue to supportculture in this country.mnouchkine But Anthony, theater has to dowith the Other. It’s the art of knowing, understanding,and incarnating the Other, otherpeople. Therefore it’s also a school of life and76