Convulsions

By

Hakim Bah

Direction

Frédéric Fisbach

Performed by

Ibrahima Bah, Maxence Bod, Sophie Cattani en alternance avec Lorry Hardel, Madalina Constantin, Nelson-Rafaell Madel, Marie Payen

Canceled show / Coronavirus information
Following the Prime Minister’s announcement to ban gatherings of more than 100 people in order to curb the spread of the coronavirus, we are called to cancel all representations and demonstrations in the Célestins until further notice.

Domestic, social and economic violence… Guinean author Hakim Bah transposes Thyestes and the tragedy of the Atreidae to the heart of modern-day Africa in an anticipatory tale with sharp, burlesque overtones.

The play deals with ownership, land to be conquered and exile, between a basketball court and an airport. Torture, fratricide, adultery, anthropophagy and infanticide are all themes taken from Seneca’s work to highlight the misguided ways of our modern world. In Convulsions (for which Hakim Bah won the RTI Theatre Prize), Thyestes, Atreus and Aerope span the centuries to experience the political and intimate challenges of our high-tech, globalised world.
Violence is present in each scene, pushed to the limit of absurdity and to the point of exhaustion. It is combined with the grotesque, questioning our ability to accept the unacceptable, whilst extolling the joys of theatre. “Hakim Bah is one of a generation of authors breathing new vitality into drama, urging us to speak out onstage”, explains director Frédéric Fisbach. This is vivid proof of the need to consider and cultivate our human side and open up to everything that is foreign, different and strange to us.