Critical Stages (Dec 2021)
Aural/Oral Histories of Pain and Trust in Satoshi Miyagi’s Révélation
Abstract
Our essay analyzes Satoshi Miyagi’s production of Révélation, written by the Cameroon-born dramatist Léonora Miano, translated into Japanese by Akihito Hirano and staged first at La Colline—Théâtre national, Paris, in August 2018, and then in Shizuoka Arts Theatre, Japan in January 2019. The analysis investigates the dimensions of speech, sound and bodily movement characteristic of Miyagi’s directorial approach as an example of an aural/oral dramaturgy that reconfigures the audience’s sensory adaptation. In this play, Miano uses a mythological framework to take up the controversial question of the African complicity in the slave trade and the complex relationship between victim and perpetrator in this historically sensitive issue. The play dramatizes the judiciary court in which the Goddess Inyi presides to hear testimonies from the African people who cooperated with the European slave traders. This hearing is conducted to give belated justice to Ubuntus, the lost souls of the perished slaves who have not been mourned, deprived of any opportunity to talk or listen. Through an analysis of Miyagi’s production, we aim to argue that oral histories can become viable in theatre by way of aural histories, particularly in dealing with controversial historical incidents like the slave trade—in which most of the victims have been deprived of their verbal as well as auditory capabilities under brutal and inhuman circumstances. A theatrical representation which pays attention to the intricate relationship between our capacities to speak and hear within a prehistorical framework of African mythologies could be an effective and innovative example of aural/oral dramaturgies, as elucidated by our analysis below.
