Like D.H. Lawrence, Frank McCourt and, more recently, our own Jimmy Barnes, Édouard Louis weaves poverty into poetry, gives voice to the men who work the factory floors and silence their pain with drink, and to the children who suffer from the presence and the absence of these men.
With his autobiographical novels The End of Eddy, History of Violence, and Who Killed My Father, and his sociological and political non-fiction pieces for outlets like The New York Times, 32-year-old French writer Édouard Louis has emerged from France’s age of austerity as one of the most vital left-wing thinkers and communicators of his generation. In Schaubühne Berlin’s stage adaptation of Louis’ third novel, directed by Thomas Ostermeier, and starring Louis as himself, the political policies of Chirac, Sarkozy, Hollande and Macron are made personal, the consequences are personified, as Louis advances the thesis that racism, homophobia, classism, or any form of systemic disadvantage, can be distilled as equalling premature death. This makes the politicians who stoke inequality and, by extension, the people who vote for such policies, killers.
The stage designed by Nina Wetzel is quite bare: in one corner is Louis writing desk; in the other corner, Louis’ father’s maroon chair sits ominously. Louis’ space is where he creates; his father’s space is where he destroys. At the rear of the stage is a floor to ceiling screen, upon which videos produced by Sébastien Dupouey and Marie Sanchez and surtitles translating the French dialogue are projected. There were some complaints by older audience members about the visibility of these surtitles. In a non-linear narrative, Louis’ relates his traumatic upbringing, where every day as he headed home from school, he hoped his alcoholic and homophobic father was out on a bender, not sitting and scowling in his chair. Despite his father’s abuse, though, he still loves him; still wants his approval. He clings to the moments of tenderness; searches for moments when he was happy, and speculates on the social forces, such as toxic masculinity and capitalistic exploitation, that snuffed his youthful spark out.
The emotionally intense themes are intermingled with joyous dance breaks to Aqua and Britney Spears, representing Louis’ discovery of his sexuality while dancing in his bedroom. His dancing, and his sexual identity, were ultimately a cause of rupture between Louis and both his parents. Louis is a compelling storyteller; the structure and language of the narrative is powerful enough on its own, as his best-selling books have demonstrated. Delivered live with Osermeier’s direction and Schaubühne Berlin’s collective stage wizardry, this is a triumphant work: a call to revolution.
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