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One has staged plays in Sarajevo, Gaza, Jenin, the other is an emblematic figure of African theater and founder of the International Theater School in Benin (EITB). Interview with Hervé Loichemol and Alougbine Dine at the Francophonie festival in Limoges, France, after the premiere of their show "The End of the World, of course".
RFI : The end of the world obviously , this piece to laugh and think begins with a Lizard and ends with Aimé Césaire. It starts with a tourist dressed as a settler boiling Benin society with a dead lizard found in his bag. For which audience did you stage this show with student-actors of the EITB in Benin ?
Hervé Loichemol : The questions facing young actors in Benin join ours today. Which theater for which audience? Indeed, the piece starts from a lizard issue, and then the fiction collapses. A certain type of theater is questioned. What we play is challenged by the public. It is the organization of this challenge, its transformation into another theater, which will gradually give pride to Aimé Césaire. We start from a question of lizard to make another proposal of theater which is inspired by a very great text absolutely founding, the notebook of a return to the native country .
As director of the International Theater School of Benin, you play among your students in The End of the World , written and directed by Hervé Loichemol. What is the challenge of this piece for you ?
Alougbine Dine : For me, it's this mix of cultures. This point of view of another, of another culture in relation to another. Suddenly, it takes unexpected dimensions. Because it is precisely this alteration of the French language with another culture that makes this effect.
In the 1990s, in response to the war in the former Yugoslavia, you co-founded the Sarajevo Committee in Geneva and staged several plays in the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since 2014, you have been involved in the project " Theater for Gaza ". Today, why do you work with students from Benin ?
Hervé Loichemol : It is these exchanges that nourish my activity as a director. I have been doing this work for twenty or thirty years with places, countries, regions, cities that are in a major difficulty. This was the case of Sarajevo, Gaza, this is the case of Palestine, but it is also the case of Benin, though differently. It is very important and very enriching for me to confront myself and to be confronted with realities that are different and that force me to reconsider the usual frameworks that are mine, of a director who directed a theater , companies, etc.
In the room, your student-actors are placed everywhere in the room to emerge at a given moment among the spectators. How do you work with them the relationship with the public ?
Alougbine Dine : In Benin, we work a lot on the relationship with the public. The public at home, he is very fond of shows. Quite simply, because there is nothing else, even if television takes a lot of space today. But the theater still has its place. We do a lot of shows with the general public. We play the theater not only in theaters, but also in stadiums. Students have a relationship to the public that is still ... plural.
The previous play, José Pliya's The Pathmaster's Stuff, in which some of your students performed, was applauded in Benin, but also in Switzerland and France. Did it strike you that the same piece could have been successful in Africa and Europe ?
Alougbine Dine : I would not say it hit me. I was sure of that, since I have the experience. The way it's done, I was sure it will work in Benin. That's right, it's a Franco-Beninese who wrote the play. But the way it was set up by Simone Audemars, director of FOR, makes it happen everywhere. Young Beninese were amazed. I was sure that there will be the same effect everywhere. What is good in Tokyo can be good in Porto Novo, Kamchatka or Cameroon.
One day, I had mounted The Prime of Israel Horovitz [American writer and director, Ed ]. And this piece looks so much like Beninese. It retraces our life. This race against the invisible, against nothingness, where one seeks to have everything for oneself. I put such things in it that people in Benin said, " It works in Benin, but not elsewhere ." I bet it would work everywhere. And even among the Arabs, the room worked well, even if it sometimes speaks of sex. Today, this piece in which I play, it is so well cooked that there is a little of everything. Whoever comes, he will always have his share to take in, whoever he is.
You are the director of the International Theater School of Benin (EITB). Where do the students come from and where do they leave after graduation ?
Alougbine Dine : The students generally come from West Africa, Benin, Togo, Niger, Burkina Faso, these are the four countries that really do school. And from time to time, there were students from Nigeria, Chad ... They also come from Congo, Senegal. When they finish, they return home. Today, a network that does not say its name has been created. In ten years, twenty years, the school will have skimmed all the countries of West Africa and a real network will settle, of course.
Do students find work after school ?
Alougbine Dine : My pupils work. Today, the symbols of success at home, it's simple: to have a wife, children that we feed well, a house, a car ... Those who are first class [students released in 2006, Editor's note ), they all have their house, their car, everything. And the others who come behind, it's the same. This is done, little by little. When they come to my home, there is one fundamental thing. At the same time, I am a comedian, a stage designer, a director ... I get a touch of everything at the theater. So, that's what I teach them. For this, we bring from all over Switzerland, Belgium, France, high-level teachers. We have an agreement with ENSATT [the National School of Theater Arts and Techniques, Lyon, Ed]. So, they have a total vision on the theater. We try to put a lot of arrows on their bow. After they come out as they want. So, there are some who have been trained for the stage, but who are now accomplished directors.
What does the French-speaking world mean to you ?
Alougbine Dine : The Francophonie brings together many people from many countries. It is an important network. In fact, it is also this network that we try to feed partially by trying to be able to go further than that. And that will come. The School already has repercussions everywhere. When people make requests to become actors, in France, in Togo, in Benin, people tell them: " go to Cotonou, there is a theater school ". And the most amazing thing today is that there is a young Frenchman who wants to come to school. Here. So, it will end up being really francophone too.
And for you, French director, born in 1950 in Algeria, until 2017 director at the Comédie de Genève, what does the Francophonie represent for you ?
Hervé Loichemol : I notice that the French language has gained in quality with foreigners. When it comes back to us from afar, namely from Africa, the Caribbean or elsewhere, the French language comes back most often enriched, magnified, excavated, deepened, renewed. So how can we not be grateful to all the people around the world who speak and enrich the French language?
► The end of the world obviously , text and staging : Hervé Loichemol. A production of the FOR Coy and the International Theater School of Benin, presented at the Festival of Francophonies, The Autumn Zebra, in Limoges.
► The Francophonies - Writings on the Stage, The Autumn Zebra, from September 25 to October 6, 2019, in Limoges, France