L'Apathie pour débutants

In the 2000s, in Sweden, a mysterious phenomenon occurred: the children of asylum seekers suddenly became apathetic, retreating into an incomprehensible silence and refusing to eat. Rumours then began to circulate: perhaps the new immigration policy was to blame, but perhaps these children were feigning illness or their parents were drugging them. The rise of these suspicions undermines the cohesion of Swedish society – the very society that invented the welfare state – revealing the excesses of Western public opinion, which now rejects the humanitarian duty to welcome refugees.
Whilst conducting a gripping investigation into this news story, Jonas Hassen Khemiri crafts a play for six actors, featuring some thirty characters whose stories tend towards the universal. He examines mistrust of foreigners and our guilty European consciences, which have traded the tradition of the Enlightenment for crocodile-tear-like reflexes of hatred or a cowardly turning away.
With humour and self-criticism, Khemiri continues his endeavour to create theatre that is playful in its daring dramatic structure and political in its message.