"L'affaire d'une fois"
A review of Linda Maroy’s play 'Rien ne vous oblige à faire de ma peine une chanson,' performed at Goethe-Institut Kigali on Saturday, March 16th, 2024
At Goethe-Institut on Saturday, Congolese artist Linda Maroy gave us a captivating performance. One viewer said she has “a superpower for holding her audience”—he said it all. Goethe-Institut took a risk by supporting a Francophone play, and their risk paid off.
“Je ne regrette rien [I regret nothing]” (1).
Maroy’s one-woman play Rien ne vous oblige à faire de ma peine une chanson, performed at Goethe-Institut Kigali on Saturday, March 16th, began with an incarcerated woman named Leila processing her experience of gender-based violence in university. “Ce qui est fait est fait [What’s done is done],” Leila says. “Ma passée doit rester au passé…Le présent doit être vécu [My past should stay in the past. The present must be lived].” Before the audience knew the details of what she experienced, we heard her interpretation. In the first act, Maroy created distance through this interpretation, and she gradually drew the audience closer as the play progressed.
Maroy transitioned to the second act by undoing one of her braids and combing her hair (2). This gesture created a sense of intimacy between Leila and the audience. As Maroy told us Leila’s story, she moved dynamically, changing her body posture and her voice. She made us laugh when she pulled strands of hair over her face and blew them away.
She took out another braid, signaling the third act. In this act, Leila receives a failing final grade that does not make sense based on the marks she earned throughout the semester. When she approaches her male professor about the grade, he tells her she needs to give him something else. “Money?” she guesses, to which he replies, “C’mon Leila, ne me déçois pas [don’t disappoint me].” This final grade prevents her from advancing, so Leila rationalizes the situation by saying it will be “l’affaire d’une fois [a one-time thing].”
During Leila’s meeting with the professor in a hotel room, Maroy increased the intensity of her performance. Her eyes pierced the audience, and her vulgar words encouraged us to pay attention. As she reenacted the hotel dialogue with the professor, we hung onto every word. The tension grew until it erupted into “a marvelous fountain of blood” (Leila cuts off the professor’s penis, hence why she is in prison.).
After the play finished, Maroy stayed for a Q&A session. She explained the origin of the script: “Au départ, c’était juste un texte que je voulais écrire pour un concours [At the beginning, it was just a text that I wanted to write for a competition].” Over time, she developed the text, and its decisive ending emerged as a result of the writing.
Inspired by true stories, Maroy uses her play to raise awareness about sexual violence and harassment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). She does not give her audiences answers. Instead, she hopes we will brainstorm solutions ourselves.
A line from the play alluding to Édith Piaf’s song.
Suggested to me by my friend Mahault.