In Avignon, “Gahugu Gato (Little Country)”, the diffracted and delicate story of the Rwandan drama

"We must not doubt the beauty of things even under a torturous sky," writes Gaël Faye in his autobiographical novel Petit pays (Grasset, 2016). When the phrase resonates within the walls of the Cloître des Célestins, it has the force of evidence and the authority of a statement of intent. Simple and clear, peaceful, even though its backdrop is the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994, the staging of Gahugu Gato (Petit pays ) by Frédéric Fisbach and Dida Nibagwire settles with a crazy delicacy into the Avignon night.

Adapted from the text by Gaël Faye, performed in Kinyarwanda (with surtitles) by a magnificent team of 11 Rwandan and Burundian performers, this crystalline show of ineffable sweetness refuses to be spectacularized. Twenty-six years separate it from Rwanda 94 , the theatrical and documentary uppercut delivered by Jacques Delcuvellerie at this same Avignon Festival. The passage of time has not lessened the horror of the genocidal drama. But what yesterday required an aesthetic and political electroshock to alert consciences, now has the possibility of being expressed with serenity, in the calm of a performance that is all the more persuasive because it does not exhibit itself, does not gesticulate, does not shout.

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