Jeanne Balibar stars alone in “En Sicile,” a solo performance based on a text by Juliette Blamont. Balibar also directs the production, in which she shifts between characters and moves with playful energy around the words.
The story unfolds over an April afternoon. Its narrator has left her life in Paris for a house on the Italian hillside. Nearby lives an elderly woman, Signora Rosa, while a goat called Miss Coco wanders close by but keeps a respectful distance.
The setting is evoked through sensory details of earth, sun, flowers and heather. A mobile phone occasionally interrupts the narrator’s monologue, bringing a trace of modern life into the otherwise quiet landscape.
Balibar performs on a sparse stage furnished with a step ladder and two large suitcases. She emerges from a blanket laid on the floor, which rises to form a shifting naturalistic backdrop painted by French-Italian artist Julie Polidoro.
Sources: Le Monde Culture.