“Polywere”, a piece that addresses hunting and the relationship between humans and nature

“Reading Catherine Monin’s text immediately captured my thoughts. His poetry opens up abysmal questions,” confides Antony Fons, the director of Polywere.

In this fable, Emmanuel, barely 8 years old, accompanies his uncle hunting. It’s his first time. A treasure hunt perhaps? So far, nothing sensational.

A child inhabited by animal totems

But, traumatized for life by the cruelty of the hunt, Emmanuel is thrown into an unknown world. He becomes “polywere”, in other words a human inhabited by a multitude of animal totems.

In front of his incredulous parents, he grazes, growls, fights over the dog’s bowl, suckles from the cows’ udders. As a teenager, he was interned in a psychiatric hospital, but escaped to reconquer his identities in the forest. And there, during an improbable tête-à-tête with a badger, he exclaims:

The play depicts Emmanuel in his conquest of animal souls: his attempts, his fears and his intoxication of the forest. Parents and the so-called civilized world reveal, in turn, moving and funny encounters with this teenager, pioneer of the borders.

“Through my staging, I want to convey all the funny poetry of Catherine Monin’s text, in opposition to the brutality, even barbarism, of the world,” explains Antony Fons.

“The question of borders interests me, these borders which define the human. They are invisible and impalpable. Nevertheless, they shape our consciences. »

Muriel Porridge