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Abstract

When he wrote his very first play, Willy Protagoras enfermé dans les toilettes, Wajdi Mouawad was only 23 years old. In this tragedy, he talks about freedom’s right, and wonders about the limits that society builds around that liberty. In this play, the nicest apartment of the building is divided between two families that have complicated relations between love and hate. One day, Nelly decides to leave this masquerade, while her brother, Protagoras, locks himself into the toilets and forbids anyone to enter. He refuses to listen to his parents, to negotiate with the squatters or to deal with the neighbors. He refuses to compromise or to abdicate his freedom. But this revolt is but the echo of the socio-political Lebanese reality where Mouawad was born. And since this first play, the playwright hasn’t stopped questioning this intricate reality. We will try to prove that the protagonist’s confinement is the reflection of the constraint state of a whole country, or a whole generation, in a changing spatiotemporal frame.

Keywords

Théâtre, espace, enfermement, réalité, création, Liban

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