Comédie-Française (Presented at the National Theatre of Belgrade as part of the 58th BITEF)
As the title suggests, Tiago Rodrigues’ new play for renowned French company Comédie-Française is, on one level, a version of the ancient Greek tragedy by Euripides about the enslaved Trojan queen, Hecuba, but it is also something else. The story follows a group of actors preparing a performance of Euripides’ play as well as the personal problems of the main actress, Nadia (Elsa Lepoivre), whose son, Otis, has autism and has been mistreated by his caregivers in the home in which he is resident. The title derives from Nadia’s son’s limited vocabulary: he doesn’t speak in whole sentences but instead uses simple words to describe what he wants and what he doesn’t want: hungry / not hungry, blanket / no blanket, and so on. So, this play is at once a Greek tragedy about a mother avenging the death of her children, and a contemporary story about a modern mother fighting for justice for her disabled son, the two strands woven together.
The contemporary story is based on real-life events that occurred in Switzerland. Natache Kotuchoumov, an actor who has previously worked with Rodrigues, had a similar experience with her child. The director takes this ancient tragedy and compares it with problems that European mothers face in modern society. Whereas in Euripides’ Hecuba the protagonist gets her revenge by blinding Polymestor, in the Not Hecuba sections of the play the mother’s revenge is just a courageous fight for justice by going to court and making the case public.
The ancient and contemporary are intertwined in simple black costumes that look universal. The scenography is also simple, a desk, and chairs – but there’s also a giant statue of a dog that is revealed in the second half of the play (set design: Fernando Ribeiro). It is a reference to the myth of Hecuba, which says she was turned into a dog by the gods, so she could escape those who wanted to punish her for her revenge. In this show, it seems that it connects the ancient and contemporary worlds through a universal primal mother-children relationship that is common to both people and animals. At the end of the show, Nadia sadly howls for her child.
Although the ancient play is a tragedy, and the contemporary story in the play itself is related to a modern tragedy, the best element of this production is its sense of humour, which often comes from the actors’ comments on the fact they are staging an ancient tragedy, that the text is old, hard to understand, has been around for 2500 years, and that if the staging goes wrong, it’s all right, because it’s supposed to go wrong – it’s a tragedy.
Although comparing modern problems with ancient ones offers a larger scale for this tragedy, universality, as well as the opportunity for theatre inside-jokes, it seemed to me that Euripides’ text took up too much space in this two and a half hour show. With its hermetic poetic language, (with the lines that are read too fast for an audience who were mostly reliant on subtitles), it’s not easy to follow, especially when intertwined with another plot. Ancient material needs a more careful, slower form of direction, unlike the contemporary material that can be run through fast because it takes place within a context and in a language the audience is more familiar with.
Hecuba, Not Hecuba
One has to remember that in Belgrade, the audience has, unfortunately, seen much worse things happen to children, both in wartime, and also in today’s society where violence against children, mistreatment, and aggression, are things we are all, sadly, used to. Let’s not even speak about mothers who watch their sons die in Ukraine or Palestine. There are many tragic stories could be compared to Hecuba. But the question remains, is this one of them? Because, luckily for the mother in the play and her child, there are solutions and there is enough money, and there is the comfort they find in their relationship.
On the other hand, there may be other layers of this story that could have been more explored, other angles of social injustice – like the faith of a caregiver that works in the institution and takes care of Nadia’s son – what is her social background, what are the working conditions of the healthcare workers in that state? What are the discrimination issues they are facing? Had they come from a poor country where they can’t find a job that pays enough, like Serbia? And isn’t that another possible side of some other Hecuba?
The questions the play poses is important and relevant. But by using as its basis an ancient play that speaks about the victims of war, the expectations are higher.
Or maybe another approach could have been taken, one where we learn more about the mother and her son, about their everyday life? There is only one effective moment of that in the play – the scene where the actress puts a helmet on her head and dances to a song by Otis Redding. In doing this, she is replicating the behaviour of her son, who wears a helmet to stop him from hurting himself by hitting it. Inside the helmet, he used to wear headphones to listen to music and to dance. One time when he danced in the institution, the caregiver thought his movements were aggressive behaviour. The tragedy of this misunderstanding, which came about from lack of attention and care from a caregiver, is felt through Lepoivre’s touching smile as she speaks very expressively about her son’s gentle character and the things he loves.
It is sad that here in the Balkans we are a bit desensitized to stories like this one, because we’ve seen much worse. Sadly, the whole world is getting used to people being killed every day in Gaza and Ukraine. Everyone’s problems should be given the seriousness they deserve. Hecuba Not Hecuba may well inspire Serbian writers and directors to start telling more of our stories about the mistreatment of children and other vulnerable citizens because, even though we all know these things happen, when we stage them, we can perhaps start a more fruitful conversation, one that goes beyond fighting in the comment section of sensationalist tabloids. This show is a good example of how to deal with these issues through docu-fiction. It’s time to write our own tragedies, so we can start feeling again.
Credits:
Director: Tiago Rodrigues//Set design: Fernando Ribeiro//Costumes:José António Tenente//Light design: Rui Monteiro// Music and sound: Pedro Costa
Cast: Éric Génovèse, Denis Podalydès, Elsa Lepoivre, Loïc Corbery, Gaël Kamilindi, Élissa Alloula, Séphora Pondi
For more info, visit: Bitef.festival.rs
Mina Milošević is a playwright, dramaturg, screenwriter, and theoretician based in Belgrade. She holds a BA in Dramaturgy and an MA in Theory of Drama Arts at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. She worked as a dramaturg on plays in Atelje 212, Belgrade Drama Theatre, Yugoslav Drama Theatre, National Theatre in Belgrade, and Oda Theatre in Prishtina. Her play "Dr Ausländer (Made for Germany)" was presented at BITEF festival 2022. Her master's thesis on female friendship in Serbian contemporary theatre won the "Professor Boško Milin" Award.
