The Wall

“I don’t write just for the pleasure of it. Forcing myself to write is the only way I have found not to lose my mind… It’s unlikely these words will one day be read. For now, I don’t know if I would want them to. Maybe I’ll know by the time I’m done writing this story.” In the form of a diary, we discover the voice of the narrator of The Wall. After a worldwide catastrophe, she finds herself alone in a cabin in the middle of the woods, isolated from the rest of the world by an invisible wall beyond which all life seems to have turned to stone overnight. Within this closed world, she gets closer to animals and slowly learns to “reconnect” to the world. Directed by Chloé Dabert and given voice to and embodied by Lola Lafon, this show explores our fear of loneliness—recasting it as a strength—as well as the space left to women and their possible metamorphosis when conventions collapse.

Marlen Haushofer (1920-1970) was an Austrian writer. After studying German philology in Vienna, she married Manfred Haushofer, a dentist, and became his assistant. She published her first story in 1946. The Wall was published in 1963, and though it won the Arthur Schnitzler prize, it was largely forgotten, along with the rest of her work. Feminist literature studies and feminist movements recently shone the spotlight on her work again.

WIth Lola Lafon, Maëva Le Berre

Text Marlen Haushofer
Translation Liselotte Bod et Jacqueline Chambon
Direction Chloé Dabert
Stage design, lights Marianne Pelcerf
Music Maëva Le Berre
Artistic collaboration Zoé Lizot

Lights management Nicolas Souply
Sound management Julien Mathieu

Production La Comédie, Centre dramatique national de Reims