Many spectators had to be escorted out of the room during the play Liebestod, presented at Usine C last week, and which shows a real gesture of self-mutilation. If the bloody scene disturbed people in the audience, the theater believes it has taken the necessary steps to warn its customers.
“I am still in shock from this disconcerting spectacle presented at Usine C,” wrote novelist Roxanne Bouchard on Facebook, speaking of Liebestod, a show by Spaniard Angélica Liddell which was presented from February 22 to 24 at the Lalonde Avenue theater. She describes one of the scenes at the beginning: a woman cuts her knees and lets her blood flow, which she sponges up with bread. Then let her eat.
The novelist says she has never seen so many people leave a performance hall in the first 20 minutes of a show. “I admit that I’m not a fan of flowing blood, so at one point I was looking a little elsewhere,” she says in an interview with The Press. I told my boyfriend: if she cuts the inside of her thighs, I’m going out. » He was wondering if they had “come to see the show of a woman who self-harms”.
Among other things, yes.
Angélica Liddell has been making gestures of self-harm “in almost all of her shows” for several decades, explains Jean-Florent Westrelin, responsible for communications and marketing at Usine C. “It’s a real act that she does on stage , in a very medical way,” he explains.
Factory C was aware not only of the existence of this scene at the start of the show, but also that in Europe, where it has been presented more than 60 times, “people go out because they don’t feel GOOD “. As a result, a person had been specially hired to accompany spectators “in situations of discomfort or anxiety attacks” and to lend a hand to the usual staff of the place, trained in first aid, specifies Mr. Westrelin.
Small print and signs as prevention
The Press spoke to three people who attended Liebestod and it was not clear to any of them that Factory C staff were there to deal with any spectators feeling unwell. No mention of the potentially shocking nature of the show was broadcast before the start of the performance, as is sometimes the case when a gunshot or strobe effects can disturb some spectators.
Claudia Pharand finds that it would have been superfluous anyway. “There was nothing in that show that could have made me pass out,” she said. An avid theater spectator, she has seen others. She also believed that the self-harm scene was fake and that the discomfort of the woman she saw being escorted out of the room was not linked to the show itself.
As for Roxanne Bouchard, she does not suffer from hemophobia – fear of blood which can go so far as to make the eyes spin – but she is “not a fan of shedding blood”.
I would have liked it if the theater had informed me that there was going to be blood on stage.
Roxanne Bouchard, roamer and spectator
Roxanne Bouchard does not suffer from hemophobia – fear of blood which can go so far as to make your eyes spin – but she is “not a fan of shedding blood”.
For its part, Usine C believes that it has taken the necessary measures to inform its spectators. A warning in small print warning them of a “scene of self-harm” that could “offend sensitivity” was still posted on its website on Monday. Mr. Westrelin further specifies that signs informing the audience of a potentially shocking scene were posted near the changing rooms and the entrance to the performance hall. The warning was also present in the program.
Liebestod by Angélica Liddell was presented as a work of “absolute tragic beauty” which “celebrates death as the climax of loving passion”. The show was described as “provocative”, “heartbreaking” and “unforgettable”. Roxanne Bouchard also says she found it both “horrible” and “magnificent”, finding depth behind its shocking side.