When Meursault, the hero of Albert Camus's The Stranger, published in 1942, commits a crime on a sunny beach in Algeria, it is an anonymous Arab he kills—his name will not be uttered even once. Using this meaningful and suffocating anonymity as his starting point, Kamel Daoud built, in 2013, The Meursault Investigation, a novel which gives this anonymous Algerian an identity, a face, and a personality, as well as a place in the history of his country. Through the story of Haroun therefore appears Moussa, this brother who disappeared one summer afternoon, and left behind the weight of his absence, a pain that never disappeared, and an ever-present anger. Philippe Berling has chosen to make us hear this monologue by an old man who cannot let go of his memories and throws them at the audience as if to free himself of them. While his mother, a surviving shadow who can't but sing her rage and misfortune, watches on, Haroun speaks of his years of mourning and of the history of Algeria, intimately intertwined with his personal drama. The cost of independence, the disillusionment that followed, the tragedy of civil war and terrorism... Everything that makes up a life stolen and broken, between reality and fantasy, sarcasm and biting humour.
Former editor-in-chief of the Quotidien d'Oran, Kamel Daoud is today one of Algeria's most famous columnist with “Raïna Raïkoum” (“My opinion, your opinion”), an op.-ed. he writes almost daily in French, a language he learnt on his own during the Arabisation of Algerian schools in the 1970s. The author of a collection of short stories, Le Minotaure 504 (2008), he published his first novel in Algeria in 2013: Meursault, contre-enquête (The Meursault Investigation). Already translated into twenty-two languages, this book was awarded the Prix François Mauriac and the Prix des 5 continents de la francophonie. Certain Muslim authorities in Algeria have been campaigning for The Meursault Investigation to be banned, a religious reaction to Kamel Daoud's engagement in favour of secularism in Algeria.
Distribution
Adaptation and direction Philippe Berling
Text Kamel Daoud
Scenography and costumes Nathalie Prats
Lights and video Daniel Levy
Hairstyling and Makeup : Catherine Saint-Sever
With
Ahmed Benaïssa Haroun
and the singeur Anna Andreotti M'ma
Production
Production Théâtre Liberté-Toulon
Coproduction Festival d'Avignon, Théâtre des Bernardines-Marseille, Pôle Arts de la Scène - Friche la Belle de Mai, Marseille
With the helop of the Spedidam
With the support of the French institut of Algeria