YES DADDY is the story of a meeting between two lonely souls. What was the origin of this project?
Our starting point was to ask ourselves what would happen if one person were able to inhabit another’s past, to revisit their memory and the way they tell their own story. It was an important subject for us, a question worth exploring and presenting to the audience. We usually work on long-term creations, either individually or as a group, which we think is a healthy way of working. The process changes based on the project. For this show, some texts were written in the middle of rehearsals with the playwrights and actors, to dig further into our understanding of the topic. We examine situations from a political and philosophical perspective. In a way, the show questions humanity, history, and the future.
Does this reflection on the rewriting of the past by someone else influence the form?
Everything in YES DADDY is constantly being written and rewritten. What you learn in one scene can unravel in the next, like layers of meaning and interpretations stacked upon one another. This allows us to create a reciprocity between reality and possibility, to question what is true and what is false. From one moment to the next, contradictory situations follow each other, seemingly cancelling each other out. What is truth? This lack of resolution opens up questions about the authenticity of events and our deep emotional experiences, about how we deal with childhood trauma, for instance. The play gives the impression that every moment grants us access to the whole truth, only for it to disappear the next moment as a new situation arises. We asked ourselves how to tell the truth in all its complexity. Which version of the story is the truest? We chose not to answer, but simply to ask that question, because what matters is not factual truth but the truth of what was lived and felt. In the relationship between these two characters, every possible strategy is used to avoid feeling or staying alone.
Isn’t exploring the question of truth through theatre an almost metaphysical endeavour, given that nothing in theatre is real?
Indeed, everything rests on a stance, a convention between the actors and the audience. One of the most powerful aspects of YES DADDY is the physical presence of this older actor and this younger actor, standing together before us. Because the only truth we know is what we see, at least during the time of the performance. Everything unfolds in the present moment. We witness an encounter, the intimacy between these two bodies. The visual aspect in this creation is fundamental: we watch, but we can’t always see everything. Whatever the two actors, and therefore the characters, experience together, everything seems to happen behind a closed door, in private, as if no one else but them knew what was happening. We play with that ambiguity. Of course, everything is actually being created right in front of us, from the intimacy between the characters to the enclosed scenography. The opening scene can be read as expository, with the young actor welcoming the audience. He says, “Hello, I’m very happy you’re here.” And at the end of that introduction, he says that this house looks like any other house. No one can see what goes on inside. He says that he will try to forget that he is being watched, that there are witnesses sitting just in front of the stage. It’s like breaking the fourth wall and putting it back together right away. We want to play with that tension. YES DADDY revisits the boundaries of the contract between audience and stage, by questioning the attempt to create something real, that is, a space of actual intimacy.
Does that make us voyeurs in a closed-door drama playing out on stage, invited to look through a keyhole?
To play with the ambiguity of intimacy, we thought about what a house evokes for us: the walls that hide what is going on inside, this space of family intimacy and of our own solitude. The scenography evolves throughout the show, following the transformation of the relationship between the two men, who gradually discover how much they need each other. The more trust they build, the more the house takes shape. The scenography builds a home, albeit an emotional one, but with actual walls and small details that convey the authenticity of domestic life. Each scene redefines the notion of home, leading up to some situations that are almost secret and unfold offstage, as the walls of intimacy block the viewer’s gaze. The lighting design supports this evolution of the house and of intimacy, as do the sounds that emerge from the characters’ actions from within the house: a door slamming, a washing machine being turned on. We hear the house breathe, and everything that happens withing its walls. Only two songs come from outside to accompany what unfolds inside that house, including Abdel Halim Hafez’s “Ana Lak Ala Tol”, a song with a powerful emotional history in Arab culture: everyone knows it! It functions as a leitmotif, and in a way has a similar effect to Proust’s madeleine.
Interview conducted by Moïra Dalant in February 2025