They are young, ready to conquer the world that awaits them, but the pitfalls and heaviness of performance, so highly valued in our society of appearances, tend to slow down the bravest of fighters. In Hegemonya brand new play presented during the Teen Theater Meeting, Maxime Mompérousse explores this modern masculinity.
It is following the suicide of a friend that the author and director decides to dig into the reasons, the particular conditions which led to this gesture. He discovers that men are more inclined to take action than women, so he quickly begins to organize meetings with friends and strangers in order to discuss the notion of well-being among his acolytes. What do they find difficult about being a man? “And it was the answers that inspired the play […] These men had the impression of not being able to be the man expected, that society, that their family, that their girlfriend, that their boyfriend expects of them […] I could sense that it was a source of suffering. You know, a deaf suffering, not sharp, but which stays there all the time”, explains Maxime Mompérousse in an interview granted to the Homework just before the play’s premiere on Monday.
These men had the impression of not being able to be the man expected, that society, that their family, that their girlfriend, that their boyfriend expects of them
And what do we expect from a man in 2022? This whole notion of masculinity has thus been explored by the author, who wanted to probe the concept among young people. Among the answers collected, the notion of the ideal man came up in all generations. For young people, children and teenagers, the protective role, the strong man served as a reference to their ideal, while for older people, the idea of being healthy — and, for some, fertile — defined this notion. “A man cannot be vulnerable. That’s what I heard. I think modern masculinity is being able to reflect on your own masculinity, being able to question things that have been passed down to us from generation to generation. […] I think it’s important to do this checkup each on his own,” explains Mompérousse.
Listen
On stage, five teenagers talk about each other, exposing, each in their own way, an aspect surrounding this notion of masculinity. Illness, bereavement, loss of friendship, school failure: different themes highlight the difficulty for them to express the essence of who they are, to drop the masks. A reflection that passes through the words of boys, but which fits just as much with that of adolescent girls, underlines Mompérousse. Because there is, he says, “a pressure to become adults quickly. I’m talking about performance anxiety in the play that affects teenage boys and girls. They really have the feeling that we ask them to grow up quite quickly”. They are asked to become adults without managing to give them everything they need to succeed.
“I’m talking about masculinity here, but we understand that we have the same challenges with femininity, this kind of pressure to be an ideal woman, to know how you find your own personality through all that. Having taken the test in front of the classes, I think that young girls still reflect on this through what they see. We don’t hear much about how young men live with their masculinity. They are not encouraged to talk about it and share […] We open the door for teenagers to be what they want to be, but are we giving them the tools to be able to make choices? These are the tools that are missing, in my opinion. »
Thus, in a desire to stimulate discussion, Mompérousse ensures thatHegemony will be able to reflect on this masculine ideal, on performance, on the anxiety surrounding this alleged model to be achieved. “We did a lot of readings of the play in the classes. I feel this question among the students. They are aware of plenty of business […]but I have the impression that there is an anxiety around their role… How do we approach seduction, cruise ? There’s all that to reinvent, and that’s what’s interesting […]. In this period after #MeToo, the obligation to be aware, to lend an ear to women is part of the reflection. “The piece also sends this track. It offers a closed-door effect because the guys are in a kind of little bubble, while we hear the female characters without ever seeing them on stage. We have the impression that young people are alone in what they live. I think that one of the possible solutions that I tend in Hegemonyis to listen, to be attentive”, concludes Mompérousse gently and hopefully.
The piece is presented until 1er April as part of the Teen Theater Festival.