Mohamed Bourouissa
Zazon Castro Quartier de femmes

At the crossroads between theatre and stand-up, the first show by the visual artist Mohamed Bourouissa brings to the stage the different phases in the life of a woman in prison and its transformations. In the absence of pathos, the piece uses humour to circumvent the arduous nature of its subject matter.

Devised following a series of workshops held in a detention centre for women, Mohamed Bourouissa, an Associate Artist at the TG2 theatre, uses his first piece for the stage to blend different genres and registers. In doing so, he defuses the dramatic force of an account of life behind bars. The use of humour ensures that this putting into words of a female prisoner's life story is able to steer clear of the pitfalls of misery-mongering, and becomes a popular, accessible form of address. Though a one-person show, the piece summons up a plurality of characters that have influenced the protagonist's existence, transforming it, and whose different faces and outlines she takes on. The fruit of a collaboration between the visual artist, the author Zazon Castro and several female detainees, Quartier de femmes takes its inspiration from a reading of Antigone, the classical interpretations of which have been shifted. In the context of this tragedy, it is not so much a question of the paragon of the dilemma between morality and justice as that of the different metamorphoses of a woman shaped by her life experience and the difficulties which have punctuated it.