Erdal has left
Young writer and director Simon Roth meets Erdal Karagoz, a Kurdish exile, while living with him as roommates. As they get to know each other, Erdal expresses a desire for Simon to direct a play about his journey as a migrant, from Anatolia to Paris. After some hesitation stemming from concerns about falling into the traps of cultural reappropriation, he eventually agrees to the request.
Faced with what increasingly appeared to be an existential necessity for Erdal, the director presents a play in the form of a migration narrative based on video interviews conducted with Erdal, opening up a space for reflection on theater: how can one represent a narrative that one cannot claim as one’s own? And what psychological effects can arise from seeing one’s traumas recounted and acted out?
This play revisits the foundations of theater, exploring its cathartic power in the face of contemporary tragedies.
Co-produced with the Scène nationale de l’Essonne.
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Simon Roth, a 2021 graduate of the Conservatoire national supérieur d’art dramatique in Paris, has created a performance that is as inspired as it is inspiring, one that reimagines the conventions of documentary theater through innovative work with sound. Using an original sound design, complemented by filmed footage, he accurately brings the life of an exile to the stage.
Far from any inappropriate voyeurism that might turn his suffering into a fetish, the writer and director presents the play for what it is: an attempt to understand, to help others understand, and to convey a message at a time when barriers are being erected everywhere.
