Slimane Benaïssa from Exile in the Theatre to Theatre in Exile: Ambiguous Traumas and Conflicts in the Algerian Diasporic Drama

Abstract

Franco-Algerian history and politics demonstrate that exile is still, and perhaps more than ever, a political, cultural and economic dilemma that overshadows many other issues. The ideological controversies of the colonial period have receded only to give way to new postcolonial contradictions. Conflict and political infighting continue to inflict new pain. Algerian people continue to experience exile and displacement. The performative practice and conceptual approaches set out in this essay show how Slimane Benaïssa's theatre is able to explore the trauma, memories and wounds associated with the exilic experience. This analysis proposes an understanding of exilic theatre as a dynamic medium of performance and movement, which make space for the displaced to enact, with real voices and bodies, in contrast to written words, painted experiences or imagined stories, a communal, personified, confrontational context that is easily capable of juxtaposing diasporic and non-diasporic perspectives within the same space. The theoretical underpinning for this argument is a conviction that the diasporic arts constitute a distinct intellectual construct that has resulted from the colonial legacy and is put to use along three contradictory but reflective axes. The binary pairing ‘Franco-Algerian’ records one of the defining dimensions of modern Algerian/French history, invoking the geographically delimited and bioethnically inscribed human traumas that have been suffered since the early days of colonisation. It also represents a systematic reminder to the francophone audience, raising its awareness of these questions and prompting it to think profoundly about the apparently inescapable fates of those whose stories are being told.