“The show is very accessible, what happens between the set and our audience is quite direct and fun. But the subject is not! It’s all about flushing out, [de démystifier] stories that have been kept somewhat secret in our regions. “Feeling “a little awkward” in her way of expressing herself, the friendly Adeline Rosenstein wants to start our virtual interview with this clarification, in case her explanations seem too complicated.
In his documentary piece poison lab, Presented at the FTA, the Swiss director, actress and playwright, based in Brussels, tackles vast subjects: the memory of resistance movements and how history arbitrates between traitors and righteous. Originally, she wanted to question her own representations, mostly from films or documentary material.
“I wanted to take a closer look, because the survival of a resistance movement is linked to its image. The French historian Cécile Vast, who wrote about it, explains well this question of the legend which surrounds the clandestine movement, therefore invisible. He must not leave traces, but he must make people believe that he is welcome and that he is tall, strong and handsome. This is important, for strategic reasons. So, once the conflict has passed and the liberation has been won, the question arises of whether or not to question this glorious image. »
Adeline Rosenstein makes it clear from the outset that her goal is not at all to blacken these groups. On the contrary, drawing lessons from less attractive episodes of history helps to guard against them. “It’s more about saying that perhaps the difficulties encountered by a resistance movement could teach us to avoid them, to recognize them if they happened to us on another scale. Pinpointing certain dilemmas occurring in these extreme situations can teach us useful things for life in times of peace, in which one makes political choices, all the same. »
And a recurring question related to this image concerns “the possibility of disintegration or betrayal within otherwise so admirable movements”, a dimension often hidden. “The starting point was an interrogation of people who had belonged to left-wing resistance movements in the fight against fascism. Why do they have such contrasting reactions to the national independence movement in their colony? For instance, [chez] certain former resistance fighters, who could be called socialists at the time of the repression of the Algerian national liberation movement. Why would a survivor of a camp, ten years later, build one on the other side of the Mediterranean? And those who refused that, they are treated as traitors, whereas in my eyes, they remained faithful to their commitment. This is what is complicated when we speak of those years that in France are called the Trente Glorieuses, 1945-1975. »
But the moment that interests the designer the most in the show is “linked to the actions of the colonial powers to prevent independence and, when it triumphs, to sabotage it. Because it’s my parents’ generation! I have the impression that there was a silence on this, which could be comparable to the silence that there was on Nazism and collaboration”.
Today, she considers it important to note that the betrayal of a cause can occur gradually. “We take a small step, then a second, etc. Often because friends recommend it for our good. And to be smarter, don’t be stubborn. It is this type of discourse that sometimes means that we are in the enemy camp without realizing it. Always telling ourselves that we were cunning, that we were smarter, less dogmatic, more tactical. It’s just that there comes a time when you can’t go back. In our ways of speaking, of acting, we have become what we wanted to fight. By dint of strategy. »
Show the unshowable
Adeline Rosenstein comes to Montreal to present – “we are very happy and excited about it” – three segments, out of the four, of this show built in episodes. It focuses successively on the Belgian partisans during the German Occupation, the Algerian War and the decolonization of the Belgian Congo.
We take a small step, then a second, etc. Often because friends recommend it for our good. And to be smarter, don’t be stubborn. It is this type of discourse that sometimes means that we are in the enemy camp without realizing it.
Without performing the anatomy of a resistance movement — “it would take way too much time” — the team at poison lab worked with researchers. “Historians research verified facts. But what we touch on when we speak in front of the public is the question, oh so delicate, of memory. We are dealing with very great suffering, which still passes through generations after the people directly concerned. We must therefore always approach these movements with respect and with awareness of our shortcomings, of the difficulty of showing anything, given that they were intended to leave no trace. And we take a dramatic risk, that is to say to discredit the whole movement. Spectators are thus asked to make efforts to compartmentalize the information that is transmitted. So that they don’t contaminate the rest. “That’s why we talk about poison!” Of this thing which, in small doses, heals and, in too large a dose, kills. »
Rosenstein, as the narrator, shares the “more or less empty” stage with 12 performers. “We are inspired by many documents, but we offer them without any desire to reconstruct them, played as schematically and ‘stupidly’ as possible, in the sense of making [situations] which will go on becoming more complex. So you always have to stick to a fairly simple line so that, even when the image is more complex and there are 12 characters, corresponding to different places in the world, you can still decipher it. It’s a bit like comics. And by the way, we can’t resist the urge to make fun of our habits of both performance and consumption of documentary theatre, which works with illustrated explanations. »
In a posture of humility, the show openly displays the holes in historical archives and the limits of representation. It is complex to dramatically evoke geopolitical issues on stage, where we are much more used to sympathizing with an individual drama, explains the designer. “For example, the shenanigans that make it possible to organize an assassination from a distance, from neighboring countries, or even from a very distant continent, it is very difficult to show, because you have to [exposer] full of places at the same time, of historical actors and actresses, such as international institutions. This is why we start from a somewhat comical postulate. We say to ourselves, in fact: the more it is impossible to show, the more we will ask you, dear public, to try to imagine it. And so we always have a half-smile in front of our somewhat poor means to show such serious things. »