History of Violence

Thomas Ostermeier, one of the most brilliant theatre directors of his generation, directs in Spoleto the stage adaptation of History of Violence, the internationally acclaimed autobiographical novel by Édouard Louis, described by the Guardian as “courageous and ambitious”. Drawing on different languages – including dance, video, music – Ostermeier develops a complex narrative structure that reconstructs the trauma of a violent encounter.

At 4 a.m. in the Place de la République in Paris, on his way home from a Christmas dinner, the young Édouard meets Reda, a man of Algerian origin. They start talking, flirting, and soon Édouard accompanies Reda to his studio apartment where they spend the night together. Reda talks about her childhood and her father, who fled to France from Algeria. The atmosphere is playful, they laugh, exchange effusions and have sex. But when, at the moment of breaking up, Édouard discovers that his smartphone has disappeared, Reda suddenly pulls out a gun and threatens him. The situation quickly turns to intimidation, violence and rape. The next morning, Édouard goes to the police to seek medical help. Not knowing how to deal with his trauma, he flees to his sister Clara in northern France and confides the whole affair to her. The reactions of the people around him, the police and the doctors who will treat him reveal the racist and homophobic side of society.

In his autobiographical novel History of Violence, the French author Édouard Louis, reconstructing that traumatic night, creates a work that is intended to be a personal and pungent analysis of coming of age, desire, emigration and racism. By capturing the diversity of reactions on learning of the crime committed against him, he makes the socially repressed forms of violence audible.

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