Empathy Lab | The Press

Something beautiful is happening at the Théâtre La Licorne these days. A human experience which engages our mirror neurons, also called “empathy neurons”, and which calls upon our openness to dialogue.

This is the play 5 bullets in the headwritten by Roxanne Bouchard and directed by François Bernier.

Originally, the text of this piece is a book published by Éditions QuébecAmérique. Its author, Roxanne Bouchard, also known for her detective novels featuring investigator Moralès, had made a first foray into the military world thanks to correspondence with a soldier from the Royal 22^e Regiment, Patrick Kègle. Stationed in Afghanistan, Kègle was homesick and confided in Roxanne Bouchard, then a literature teacher at CEGEP. Their epistolary exchange became a book, In a minefield: correspondence between a novelist and a soldierwhich led its author to deliver several conferences.

It was during one of her speeches that she was approached by other soldiers who also wanted to tell what they had experienced in Afghanistan. A second book followed, 5 bullets in the headwhich gives voice to their testimonies.

From paper to stage

I interviewed Roxanne Bouchard in December 2017, when the book was released 5 bullets in the head, a reading that moved me. The words of the soldiers – this outspoken anti-militarist had met around thirty of them – were striking and disturbing.

Some of the testimonies were very intimate, some confidences were spoken with lip service. I was curious to discover how this powerful text had been transposed to the stage.

The result is a success and gives rise to a performance every bit as powerful as the book. On stage, the actors embody with great accuracy and humanity these worn-out soldiers, abandoned by society, aware of having gone to do the dirty work that no one wanted, in the name of a cause that seemed more or less justified to them. . Returning to the country with their physical and psychological injuries, they found themselves alone with their post-traumatic syndrome. A real tragedy.

The power of empathy

There is a gulf between the reality of the military and ours, civilians accustomed to living in our comfort and turning a blind eye to us when it comes to the army, its means and its reality.

However, for the space of 1 hour 40 minutes, the magic of the theater ensures that we slip into their shoes and experience their fears and their pain vicariously.

Thanks to our famous mirror neurons, we feel their heartbreaks and their frustrations. That’s what empathy is: being able to put yourself in someone else’s place. Which does not mean that we become pro-militarist. As author Roxanne Bouchard says, “I am more pacifist than ever.”

The dialogue provoked by the play 5 bullets in the head is threefold. There is an exchange between the actors and the soldiers they play. There is the exchange between the public and the actors. Then there is a third, very rich conversation, between the public and a former soldier invited by the production of the play to answer the (many) questions from the spectators.

Sunday afternoon, there was a flurry of questions and I have the impression that we could have spent the evening in the La Grande Unicorne room, the desire to discuss was so palpable. Veteran Alexandre Auclair, who spent six months in Afghanistan, answered questions from the audience without taboos during a rich, respectful and very informative exchange.

When I asked him what it made him feel to see the play, he replied without hesitation: “If you want to understand what happened in Afghanistan, you have to see it. That’s it ! Everything is here. ” He also confided that reading Roxanne Bouchard’s book a few years ago had provoked a reaction in him that he had not anticipated: “I was reading and it’s as if I was taken back there- down. I felt the warmth of the sun’s rays on my skin, I heard the wind…”

This reading made him realize that even though he had been back from his mission for a long time, he might not be doing as well as he thought. Roxanne Bouchard’s book opened a door that allowed him to return to what he had experienced, and which he had buried.

Listening to him speak on Sunday, I told myself that participating in these discussions was just as beneficial for him as it was for the people in the room.

When do we have the opportunity to speak freely with a former soldier in a context where everyone feels welcomed and listened to without judgment? Rarely.

Roxanne Bouchard has done useful work, there is no doubt.

I began to dream of a similar exercise for homeless people, people suffering from mental health problems, in short for all the people who are marginalized in our society and who are rarely listened to.

The room 5 bullets in the head reminds us that empathy is at the heart of dialogue. No matter the gap that separates us, there will always be a meeting point.

5 bullets in the head is presented at La Licorne until April 6.

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