AMNESIA

Individual responsibility, collective responsibility. Group and individual. Group against individual. Group against group.

- JALILA BACCAR y FADHEL JAÏBI.

What would happen if a top politician learned of his sudden dismissal while watching TV? What would ensue if the person who one day held power suddenly saw himself deprived of his honorary positions, titles, privileges and responsibilities? What would occur if, overwhelmed by the unpredictable and uncontrollable course of events, this same man set fire to his library?

Amnesia is a play which surprised the critics, not only for its observation and expressiveness but also for its prescience, courageously portraying the kind of political events which later caused such upheaval in Tunisia. The work details how a head of state, removed from a monolithic political system, is confronted with the injustice that he himself helped to create. That human being, raised and then driven out by the arbitrary mechanisms of power, is locked up inside a psychiatric unit and forced to face up to his past, together with doctors, lawyers, judges, mentally disturbed people, survivors of his dirty tricks and a tenacious journalist. Jalila Baccar and Fahdel Jaïbi, enfants terribles of the Tunisian artistic world, present a squalid picture of power and people's memories.

With a deserted stage setting and 11 actors who play various roles, Amnesia is a powerful example of the subversive theatre produced by Baccar and Jaïbi who, as well as being celebrities in their own country, are recognised across Europe as spearheads of the politically committed Arabic theatre. Amnesia premiered in Tunis in April last year and, after a tour of France, the French daily Libération described it as "an unprecedented, courageous work, startlingly full of expression without self-censorship for a country in the Arab world."

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