En douce

Ariane Valraiseau is a scientist and co-author of the Meadows Report, which as early as 1972 warned of the collapse of our societies and the inevitable depletion of resources, given population growth and our consumption patterns. One day in 1979, at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, this brilliant speaker and dedicated ambassador paused in the middle of her speech and left the room. “She gets up and walks out,” withdrawing from the world to a house in the countryside. Ariane and her sister Delphine reunite there at five pivotal moments in their lives between July 1979 and September 2001. Julien Fišera commissioned author Clémence Weill to explore this question: What is the cost of patriarchy, and, more prosaically, how can we measure its impact on our lives? Through this fictional, activist, and feminist play, imbued with the atmosphere of Chekhovian dramas, *em* *En douce* , a co-production of the TDB, asserts its own style—powerful and full of humor. Julien Fišera creates a theater of words and bodies that brings the home to life and gives voice to those we cannot hear—the silenced voices of women and others we never even suspected existed.