Le Cœur d’Esther

In the 19th century, a strange manuscript signed by a certain Ester—a mysterious young woman of deep religious fervor—is discovered in the English countryside. Through a series of diaries and love poems, the manuscript recounts how Ester wore herself out giving herself to her lovers and loved ones until the day she vanished from the village without a trace. 

The play inspired by this story functions as a direct confession to the audience, in a sort of intimate ritual of speech. A confession that, as with Saint Augustine, is a means of redeeming ourselves together; a confession that becomes devotion and makes us rethink the limits of emotional devotion and the dangers it poses to the performer’s body.