Why did you want to co-direct an adaptation of Gaël Faye’s novel?
Dida Nibagwire : I read Gaël Faye's novel when it was first published. What shook me was its evocative power and the memories it brought back. As a Rwandan, the story touched me deeply. I was very young before the genocide, and in those pages I found childhood games, the details of everyday life that would later be destroyed. I felt even closer to the novel when I was contacted by Éric Barbier’s team to work as casting director and technical advisor on the film adaptation of Petit Pays. That remains a very important professional and emotional experience for me. In 2023, in Paris, Gaël Faye and I went to see the adaptation Frédéric had done of the text for the stage, and we were both very impressed by the power of his direction. It conveyed a kind of unique personality. Together, we agreed that this play needed to be presented in Rwanda. That’s how the adventure began.
Frédéric Fisbach : What moved me when reading this text was the child’s perspective. We follow the whole story through Gaby’s eyes. He’s on the edge of something, about to cross into adolescence, just as his intimate and family world falls apart. At the same time, he watches everything he once knew disappear. It’s the awakening of a consciousness, already wounded. At the end of the novel, the character returns to his country, and that relationship to foreignness, to exile, deeply affected me. Because it’s a story that defines me, that echoes my own. I started again from that perception of return to tackle the adaptation of the novel. It was a long and somewhat chaotic journey, and in the end, I felt like I had missed something. When Dida and Gaël came to see me at the end of the performance, I immediately agreed to take on the project again with them, so we could reshuffle the deck and get even closer to the truth of the novel.
The play will be presented in Kinyarwanda. Did this shift from one language to another change your perception of the work?
F. F.: I think that, paradoxically, it’s what allowed us to step away from the novel and make this new adaptation possible. There was also the encounter with the artistic team in Kigali, and suddenly, by blending the text with music, songs, and dances, all while continuing to pare down the adaptation, we were able to rediscover the essence of the story. It became something like a journey, a return through language. It also gave me a different kind of freedom in terms of staging. Because I didn’t understand the language, I experienced a different perception of the stage and of directing the team. I came with my toolbox as a theatre director, while accepting that there were things that didn’t belong to me. That also allowed me to reposition myself in a more honest place creatively, even though the Rwandan genocide is intrinsically tied to French history, to a French responsibility. It was also deeply connected to our work with the performers, to their generosity, and to the spirit of sharing that existed among us.
D. N.: For the team, it was immediately clear that the play had to be performed in Kinyarwanda. It allowed us to get as close as possible to the emotions of the text. Not everyone in the team speaks the language fluently. Some members went into exile during the genocide, to Burundi or elsewhere. This reunion through language created a powerful form of communication among us. It allowed us to find a natural rhythm in working with Frédéric, to take him by the hand and bring him along with us. What we wanted was to return this story to its “owner”. No one truly owns this story, and yet we carry it. It was about going to the people of Kigali, traveling to the villages, and performing under a tree. There were deeply emotional moments, scenes we couldn’t perform because people would walk out. We had to change certain words in the script that were too heavy for the audience to bear. The genocide happened thirty years ago, but everything remains very fragile, and we must remain mindful of that wound. We worked to make the beginning of the play a comedy. We wanted to invite the audience into the story through laughter. That was also a wish of the performers: to celebrate the childhood that lives in the novel.
F. F.: The relationship we have with language is always somewhat paradoxical. On the one hand, there’s something magical that happens through speech, and at the same time, there’s the risk of being caught up by reason, by a form of self-censorship. Not understanding the language allowed me to support the actors and encourage them to fully explore their ideas, whether through music, singing, or dance. In the end, we created a kind of unusual musical. Here, song and dance also take on what cannot be spoken, what causes too much pain. When Dida talks about comedy, it’s not just about aiming for a comedic tone, but it’s also about the desire to push the joy of “being alive” to its fullest.
You also worked with Rwandan artists for the creation of the headdresses and costumes. How did you approach the visual aspect of the show?
D. N.: We worked with three Rwandan fashion houses. They draw their inspiratio from imigongo, a traditional decorative art form in Rwanda made up of colorful or black-and-white geometric patterns. In the aftermath of the genocide, this art was at risk of disappearing, as many of the women who carried this orally transmitted tradition lost their lives in the conflict. We wanted to show how people dressed at the time, how they styled their hair. For us, it was about bringing back the memory of a way of life and giving it back a space of dignity.
F. F.: Since we’re performing outdoors and the scenography is very minimal, we wanted certain elements to light up the stage, but also for our arrival in the villages to be experienced as an “event”. That made me think of the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky; when he traveled to Siberia to do agitprop, he would arrive dressed like a dandy. It was his way of showing respect, of paying tribute to the people living in those remote places to whom he was speaking.
How do you envision the scenographic adaptation of this play, originally designed to be performed in the hills of Rwanda, for the Festival d’Avignon?
D. N.: What was beautiful about this itinerant approach was that most of the people who lived in the villages we visited had never read Petit Pays. For some, it was the first time they had ever seen a play. Suddenly, this staging became part of their everyday landscape, and the story found its setting. There was a kind of harmony emerging between the surrounding nature and the novel. When we performed the play, the moments of singing and dancing were taken up by the audience. Once again, it was a reunion, a joyful celebration. For the Festival, we want to create the same kind of connection between stage and audience within the landscape, so that the boundaries between the performance space and reality blur.
F. F.: We are trying to shift boundaries, to move inner equilibriums. There is the story within the novel, and then there is what surrounds it: a great sensuality, the presence of nature through sound, the landscapes. By bringing the audience closer to the stage, even placing them on the stage, we want to create a space of sharing, an invitation to celebrate what exists in the world. It is also about making visible the very organic nature of this creation.
Interview conducted by Marion Guilloux in February 2025.