「自分の物語を取り戻す」　仏作家の悲惨なレイプ体験が劇に

【パリＡＦＰ＝時事】エドゥアール・ルイ氏（27）はここ1週間以上、フランス・パリの舞台で400人以上の観客を前に、自分の体験したレイプが再現されるのを見ている。（写真は仏作家エドゥアール・ルイ氏）
　ルイ氏は、２０１４年に発表した私小説「エディに別れを告げて」が高い評価を得ているフランスの若手作家で、同性愛者である自らの人生を、芸術を通じて掘り下げることで知られている。だがそれでも２０１６年の著書「Ｈｉｓｔｏｒｙ　ｏｆ　Ｖｉｏｌｅｎｃｅ（暴力の歴史）」を原作とするこの劇は、見る者に耐え難い思いをさせる作品だ。
　フランス北部の貧しい家庭に生まれ育った同性愛者の物語である「エディに別れを告げて」は、世界の人々の琴線に触れた。ルイ氏はこの中で、やがて極右ポピュリズムへと変貌する新自由主義的経済によって荒廃した共同体における差別、貧困、絶望に対し、残忍なまでの正直さをもって対峙（たいじ）する様子を描いた。
　「暴力の歴史」は、クリスマスイブに路上で出会った男によって、パリのアパートの一室でレイプされ、殺されそうになった出来事を同じく焼けつくような視点で描いている。
　だがルイ氏は、若いアルジェリア人の男が銃を取り出し、自分を絞め殺そうとした時に起こった暴力を表現することが重要だと主張する。
　ルイ氏は演劇「暴力の歴史」のパリ上演に合わせＡＦＰの取材に応じ、「自分の選択ではなかったことを背負って生きていくのは容易ではない」と語った。「これらの苦しい体験を自分のものとして感じられるのが劇なのかもしれない」
　世界中で翻訳されベストセラーとなった「暴力の歴史」が、舞台化されるのはこれが初めてではない。だが、ルイ氏が直接、制作に関わったのは今回が初めてだ。

■自分の物語を取り戻す
　ルイ氏は敬愛するドイツの演出家で、ベルリンのシャウビューネ劇場を率いるトーマス・オスターマイアー氏に誘われ参加を決めたと語った。オスターマイアー氏はこの劇の演出を務めている。
　オスターマイアー氏は常に社会の仕組みを非難するために、自分の劇場を使ってきたと、ルイ氏は指摘する。ルイ氏自身も性暴力だけではなく、人種差別や同性愛嫌悪の問題を取り上げる手段として小説を使ってきた。
　「警察の調書を読んだ時、自分自身の経験だと思えなかった」ため、自分自身の物語を「取り戻す」ために本を書くようになったという。
　本の中でルイ氏は、姉を通して被害の詳細を語り、姉の夫に何が起こったかを伝えている。だが劇では、犠牲者やその家族、警察、加害者らの言葉を通して犯罪を描いた。
　劇は、自分以外の人々が何が起こったか話しているのを、エキストラのように舞台に立つルイ氏が見ている場面から始まる。
　「特に性暴力については、誰かに話した途端に誰もが自分なりの話につくり変えてしまう」とルイ氏は語る。自分の話を信じようとしない人々と何らかの下心を持っている人々との間で性暴力の話は、「自分の物語なのに、自分は登場人物の中で最も重要ではない人物になってしまう」という。
　ルイ氏は台本の書き直しに何週間も費やした。だが、オスターマイアー氏ができるだけ「非常に忠実に」したがった、最も困難ともいえるレイプそのものの場面からは逃げ出した。
　米国では見るに堪えず、途中で席を立つ人もいた。
　「劇場は、物事を揺さぶる場所であるべきだ」とルイ氏は主張する。「単なるブルジョア的娯楽には全く興味がない」
　ルイ氏はこの劇が、性暴力の被害者が自らの経験を話すきっかけになればと語る。「私が『私』という言葉を使う時、他の人も同じように話せるよう勇気づけている」。同じように自分の物語を語れるようにと。
　「暴力の歴史」の公演はパリのアベス劇場で２月１５日まで。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/02/12-12:55）

For the past week, Edouard Louis has been seeing his rape re-enacted on a Paris stage in front of more than 400 people.
Not an easy watch for the audience, it cannot have been much fun for the acclaimed young French novelist who has mined his life for his art since his breakthrough memoir, The End of Eddy, in 2014.
That account of growing up gay in a dirt poor family in a rustbelt village in northern France struck a chord across the world for the ferocious honesty with which he addressed racism, poverty and despair in communities ravaged by neo-liberal economics that were turning to far-right populists.
Louis brought the same searing eye to History of Violence, his 2016 book about being raped and almost killed in his Paris flat by a man he had met in the street one Christmas Eve.
But the 27-year-old insisted it is important to show the violence of what happened when a young Algerian man pulled a gun and tried to strangle him.
It is not easy to carry something which you did not choose, he told AFP as a stage adaptation of the book opened in the French capital.
Maybe the theatre can be a place where one can put these struggles in their place.
It is not the first time the widely-translated bestseller has been staged. But it is the first time Louis has been directly involved in the production.
- Taking back his story -
He was tempted to take part by Thomas Ostermeier, the German theatrical wizard who heads Berlin's Schaubuehne, and whose work Louis admires.
Ostermeier has always used his theatre to denounce social mechanisms through which things are filtered, said the writer, who himself used the book to explore not just sexual violence, but racism and homophobia.
Louis said he was driven to write the book to reclaim his own story after not recognising my own experiences when I read the police report.
In the book, Louis chose to recount the attack through his sister, with her telling her husband what happened.
The play, however, explores the crime through the words of the victim, his family, the police and the attacker.
It opens with the Louis figure on stage like an extra, watching as the others talk about what has happened to him.
As soon as you tell your story, particularly when it's about sexual violence, everybody creates their own version of it, Louis told AFP.
You become the least important figure in your own story, he said, between those who refuse to believe you and those with their own axes to grind.
In your shoes, I would have..., a policewoman says at one point in the play.
For weeks on end, the writer reworked the script, adding dialogue and keeping an eye on how the piece developed.
I said to the four actors: 'There is nothing I want more than for you to take over my story.'
However, Louis walked away from the most difficult scene, the rape itself, which Ostermeier wanted to make as hyper realist as possible.
It is so close to the bone, in fact, that some people in the US could not bear to watch and walked out of the play.
- 'Protest is an art' -
The theatre is a place where things should be shaken up, Louis insisted. If it is just bourgeois entertainment, that doesn't interest me at all, added the writer and sociologist.
Louis said the play had helped some people talk about the sexual violence they had suffered.
When I say 'I', I am encouraging other people to say the same and tell their stories, said Louis, who acknowledges his own debt to Annie Ernaux, a leading figure of the French autofiction genre (or fiction of the self), and his friend, the sociologist and philosopher, Didier Eribon.
Louis -- who is now writing his fourth novel -- is also proud of his activism, and has been prominent in his support of strikes against French pension reforms and the long-running yellow vest anti-government movement.
To fight the good fight, you have to do lots of things at the same time. You have to attack at different angles, he told AFP.
Indeed, Ostermeier is adapting another of Louis' books, Who Killed My Father, about how his father who came to support the French far-right after he was injured in an industrial accident and then forced off benefits and back to work when he was still not fit.
For me, a protest movement is like a great work of art, the writer said. It is something which shows you the realities you don't see, but that all of a sudden become visible.
History of Violence runs until February 15 at the Theatre des Abbesses in Paris.