For Cédric Delorme-Bouchard, one science fiction novel leads to another: it is by working on the transposition of Employeeshis hypnotic scenic object created in 2022, which he discovered Membrane. “I immediately fell in love with this work, and found the variety of themes addressed there fascinating: climate crisis, great global transformation, relationships to sexuality, gender, technologies… It’s immense what we go through, through a story that remains sensitive, personal, between a young woman and her mother. »
This time, the designer and director used the author Rébecca Déraspe to adapt the novel by the Taiwanese Chi Ta-wei, a primarily narrative fable which had to be embodied and dialogued. “We’re talking about science fiction, but the plot is immensely sensory and human. There is no doubt that it took a pen like Rebecca’s to give him this warmth, this humanity. »
It is this dimension that convinced the author of Ice cream to embark, she who touches here for the first time on this genre of imagination. “I think that the science fiction element is more in the scenic object, but that the pen remains more anchored in the sensitive,” she summarizes.
In Membrane, Chi Ta-wei, however, imagined a future where a devastated environment has made Earth unlivable, forcing humanity to migrate to underwater cities. “It’s a future that can be described as post-catastrophe, but it also carries a large part of utopia,” describes Cédric Delorme-Bouchard. It is a society where the body and mind have been liberated, much more than today. A world where literature is elevated to the rank of supreme art. And the pleasures of the body, which are as much aesthetic treatments as sexuality, are very liberated. So it’s also a world that invents luminous possibilities. »
“It’s interesting to come back to the fact that the novel was written in 1995,” recalls the playwright. I asked myself the question a lot: should I write a future that starts from my present, or that of the author? I think we found a sort of happy medium. But there is something extremely visionary in his literary proposal. »
The novelist was inspired by the hole in the ozone layer, which was the great environmental concern of that time, rather than by global warming. “But how it develops [cet univers], I find that very telling for our world today, she continues. Where are we going to live? »
Enigma
Momo (Larissa Corriveau) is preparing to welcome her mother (Evelyne de la Chenelière), whom she has not seen for 20 years, for her thirtieth birthday. And she relives several events from her past, including a major childhood trauma: infected by a virus, Momo had to live isolated in a hospital room for three years, then undergo major artificial organ transplants. We don’t want to reveal too much about this story, which gradually reveals the pieces of the puzzle and includes a final twist, explaining the personality of the protagonist.
This seems at first very enigmatic. Very solitary, she is distinguished by her “inability to enter into contact with others through the senses”, to touch them. In order to be able to feel something, this renowned beautician steals the sensations of her clients, by reusing a sort of second skin which has captured their feelings. “She places this memory membrane on her own body to experience a sexual relationship, to swim… continues Déraspe. But this is only narrative, she does not live these experiences for real. »
The playwright once again notes a visionary element: we can think of our now very virtual human interactions, where mind and body are disconnected.
“The author sees that we are moving towards a world where the sensitive will only exist through what we breathe into the brain. »
And the presence of artificial beings in this universe where “all technology is biological, even what is manufactured in the laboratory has a profoundly human texture”, as the director specifies, raises a fundamental question: what is who defines the human being? A question already present in The employees. “It’s my common thread, which runs from project to project,” recognizes Cédric Delorme-Bouchard.
For the creator, it is also a question that collectively, we have asked ourselves “regularly, at many turning points in our history. We will continue to ask ourselves this question with each new invention, with each discovery. And it also raises the question of what death is. Chi Ta-wei’s futuristic universe opens doors where we can imagine an extension of our existence. But again, at what point do we stop being human, in this intersection with the machine? At what point do we really die, to what extent can we save thought, is the body necessary to be able to define ourselves as human? There are all these questions. »
Queer
Membrane is also called the first queer science fiction novel in the Chinese language. Firstly by the very natural homonormativity of the society which is invented there. “We don’t press on that, that’s just the reality,” says the adapter. And William Durbau — Cédric’s playwright, who gave me a lot of inspiration in my writing — calls it very well: the structure of the novel is fundamentally queer, there is a fluidity there. »
Thus, it is impossible to lock the character of Momo into a single identity, explains Delorme-Bouchard. “She was a little boy, a little girl too. His body, his sex are changing. The way she perceives the world, everything is constantly changing. » Which helps to make the protagonist “an incarnation of queer thought”.
And in her stage performance too: if Larissa Corriveau carries Momo – “it absolutely required a performer like her, this game requires virtuosity of speech, body, presence” – it takes choral work to “succeed in materializing the essence” of the character. “I wouldn’t know how else to define it, it’s very special. We need six interpreters to cross the multiple facets and identities of Momo. And it unfolds like a series of reflections. »
Cédric Delorme-Bouchard is delighted with the group of performers he has brought together, including Pascale Drevillon, Marie-Christine Lê-Huu, Sébastien René, Ines Talbi. Composing a cast, he says, “is like placing little dabs of color on a canvas. One color calls for another, until we reach the perfect balance — or we hope.”
The designer describes the formal aspect of his show as “a machine to fragment, to sublimate Momo and to multiply it. The scenographic space is very difficult to describe.” Rébecca Déraspe takes over: “Cédric is an incredible sculptor of light. So it’s really important. She interacts with the show from start to finish. »
We should also expect a less clinical and technological object than its previous creation. “Of all the projects that I have put together, I think that this is the most invested, the most theatrical, in the sense that there will be characters on stage, dialogues,” opines the creator. There is this energy of living, warm, organic theater, which I have never completely approached. There we dive in. »