REVIEW: The Festival d'Avignon Presents TAIRE By Tamara Al Saadi

“It’s not fair.” This protest forms the foundation of childhood life. And they’re right. People under the age of 18 endure indignities that would push most adults to their limits. But what happens when we move from “not fair” to injustice? What is the responsible response? In Tamara Al Saadi’s Taire, now in performance at the Festival d’Avignon’s La Fabrica, the mythic tale of Antigone and the contemporary story of Eden, a French orphan trapped in the country’s bureaucratic system, serve as parallel portraits of resistance.

Eden’s foster parents love her, but when her foster father has to move, she is not allowed to follow. At just five years old, she’s separated from the only home she’s known, and from there, is passed from one foster family to the next. She becomes unmoored, haunted by a vague, devastating sense that she has been “sold away.” Meanwhile, in Sophocles’ tale, Antigone’s brothers fight a civil war. Both are killed, but only Eteocles is granted burial by King Creon. In defiance, Antigone buries the disgraced Polynices. Though the two plots never fully merge, they rhyme in moving ways. Both young women struggle to retain dignity in the face of indifferent, if not outright hostile, institutions.

A young cast of twelve performs with palpable urgency. Every member of the ensemble offers unique performative gifts. I will highlight three. As the antagonist in both plots, Manon Combes gives us someone to hate without slipping into caricature. Her villainy is deeply human. As the narrator, Mohammed Louridi brings comedic affability to a man ill-suited to the patriarchal roles expected of him. Lastly, Chloé Monteiro’s Eden is remarkable: rather than defaulting to passive sullenness, she gives us a vibrant young woman whose pain lies behind her eyes like a tempest. 

Jennifer Montseny’s jewel-toned lighting keeps the production visually alive and offers a luminous canvas on which the two stories converge. While Al Saadi’s text and staging don’t play with genre the way other Avignon offerings do. In many ways, this clean, elegant staging disappointed me as I stuck it under the banner of conventionality. And yet, midway through the performance, it struck me: this is a triumph of a genre - young adult theatre. Taire may be formally modest compared to its Festival peers, but it succeeds in introducing complex themes and theatrical form to a younger audience. While people of all ages can engage with all registers of art, there is a special, often overlooked craft in speaking directly to the young without condescension. Taire honors their concerns and their often underappreciated maturity with a moving drama.

Photo Credit: Christophe Raynaud de Lage

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