Director: Renaud Cojo
Composer: Christian Quermalet
Music: Married Monk
Design / images: Du Zhenjun

_________

 

Now I am ready to tell how bodies are changed
Into different bodies

Tales from Ovid
Translation / adaptation of Ovid's Metamorphosis by Ted Hughes

Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,
That I may see my shadow as I pass

Richard III (act 1, scene ii)
William Shakespeare

If the mind live only in particulars and see only the differences (wanting the power to see the whole - all in each), then the world addresses to his mind a question it cannot answer, and each new fact tears it in pieces . . . .

R.W. Emerson (1859)
 

1.

To be is to be perceived.  To perceive is to bring into being.  I am as I am perceived.  You look upon me and I am made by you.  I look upon you and I make you.

2.

I am reflected on the surface of your eye.  I am there for me to look upon.  I see my eyes in the mirror of your eyes.  I see me seeing you seeing me.

3.

We are not each other's comfort. 

4.

I have never been other than I am.  The light you shine on me has always been my nightmare.  I wake in darkness.  Darkness is my home, where not even my shadow can frighten me.

5.

I was not afraid until I saw another unlike me.  I was not afraid until I saw myself in the mirror of another's eye.  I have no mirror but the eyes of those who look upon me.

6.

My face is the filthy shadow of a face; from shadows my eyes blink in the nightmare light.  Yet I am not blind.

7.

I see my reflection also in the face turned from me, in the door shut upon me, the back turned to me, the face closed and shut away behind the hands, the eyes glazed in sick wonder, the pity offered and the charity withdrawn.  I see my face in every failure to see my face.

8.

I would live in a house for the blind, where none but I can see. 

I would dwell in a lighthouse, exiled by geography. 

Like a beast I would drink from pools of rainwater in an open field; I would sleep with flowers in a ditch. 

In the corner of a room I would exist like a footstool.

9.

I would dwell in a lighthouse, surrounded by the violence of the sea.  There I would be in solitude.  Mermaids would sing to me, blinded by the deep, as calm as angels blind in their rapture.

10.

I would be unseen but seeing.  Unknown, I would know.  If no one listened, I would speak.  I would be all and everything if nothing was. I would be alone if not already so alone.  I would be all that I can be if I were not who I am.

11.

I am whole but unable to be whole.  I am confusion reasoned into existence. I am all things combined and everything undone.  I am everything that you, who cannot see what I am, see that I am not.  I am everything and nothing. 

12.

Drawn out, half formed, into the world, I stand bowed under the weight of your gaze.  Beneath my gaze also I would have you bow.  From my lighthouse, from my house for the blind, I will look out at you.  You will feel my gaze like a shower of rain, of leaves, of ashes, of rain.
 

13.

Inside the maze of my skull, within the riddle of my bones, seeping from my repulsive flesh, in the malformed words that fall from my misshapen mouth, my ruin and all my blessings coagulate, as the air coagulates to hold aloft the bird in its flight.

That is how I stand before you.

14.

I tread upon the world as light as a fly in spilt milk.

15.

I have warmed myself at the meanest fires. I have slept in corners abandoned by dogs. My stage and curtain have been a broken stool and a hung tablecloth.  I have played my part, then huddled in darkness. In the darkness I have heard the footsteps of passers-by, the tunes they whistled, their passing conversations, the tap of a cane, the tick of  a watch, the sound of an umbrella opening.

And all the while I have dreamed of the touch of a woman's hand, here on the tuberous roots of my fingers and here on the pendant mass of my fouled, cauliflower skin.

My dreams have been as impossible as my self.

16.

I look out from the strange mass of my flesh.  I know that it is strange. I know that I look out from it, as if I am imprisoned.  But I know that it is only as if I am imprisoned.  I am not imprisoned. 

I look out, a watchman scouring the horizon. 

I know that there is no horizon but your beautiful eyes.
 
 
 

The Lives of Eng and Chang
 

1.

There are two of us, and only one.  We are I and I.

We were born face to face, but we have learned to turn away from each other.

We smoke cigarettes and do not smoke; drink alcohol and do not drink.  We laugh and do not laugh.

We can swim, dance and make love.

Do not always address us in the plural, but each in turn.  We will not be chained by grammar as well as flesh.

We look both north and south, east and west.  Our horizon has no limit; we see the whole disk of the world.  We stand at its centre, always.

When we first turned away from each other we were suddenly alone, like the stumps of amputations. 

Eng! I cried.  Chang! I cried.  And the other answered.

Our condition makes us solitary, but makes solitude impossible. 

Thus we stand in contradiction to ourselves, exhibiting our freakish melancholy.
 

2.

Imagine us dreaming; 
our faces in repose. 
Curled together like lovers, 
Our feet touch, 
Our breaths rise and fall
In unison;
Each of us
The spectre of the other.

Who dreams of childhood,
Who of a woman's arms,
Who dreams of a forest
And who of crowded boulevards?

I sometimes hear my brother
Murmur in his sleep,
His warm flank touching mine,
His words falling
Into my silence
Like ashes.
 

3.

We efface each other 
And live alone in moments. 
I turn away and he is gone; 
Yet I must stand when he stands, 
Rest when he is tired. 

The warmth 
Of a woman's breath 
Will touch both our cheeks
No matter for whom her kisses are intended.
Her whispers will not be soft enough to go unheard
By the one she does not want to hear them; 
The smell of her perfume will remind us both 
of honeysuckle, jasmine or roses.
 

4.

His breath stinks.
          He sleeps too much.
He drinks to excess.
          He never listens to me.
He's lazy.
          His memory is bad.
He tells lies.
          He's a miser.
He wastes money.
          He's a glutton.
He speaks with his mouth full.
          He's rude to people.
He's always miserable.
          He wants to screw all the time.
He breaks wind at the dinner table.
          He snores.
He has constant nightmares.
          He spends hours in the bath.
He doesn't comb his hair.
          He's selfish.
He has a violent temper.
          He masturbates too much.
His shoes squeak.
          He laughs at filthy jokes.
His voice is too loud.
          He spits in public.
He's always catching cold.
          He cries at the opera.
He loves melodramas.
          He has no ambition.
He lives in the past.
          He hates me.
He hates himself.
          He's always complaining.
He is always complaining.
 
 

5.

When you look at us 
Whose eyes do your eyes meet?
The gaze of one 
Is not the gaze of the other;
Our eyes see two different worlds.

I am Eng.
I am Chang.

There are photographs of us.
There are no photographs
Of one of us.

I am Chang
I am Eng.

Our shirts are tailor-made;
Two rows of buttons, two collars.
In some tailor's shop
There is a pattern hanging on a nail: 
From the breastbone to the waist
Two shirts are one.
The finest cotton cloth is specified,
French seams, not too tight
About the shoulders.

When you look at us
Admire our tailor's skill.
We wear the same shirt
But have different eyes.
 
 
 

The Conversations of Jean and Jacques Libbera
 

1.

- Brother Jacques . . .
- Brother Jean . . .
- Have you been sleeping?
- I've been dreaming of you.  I have never seen your face.
- Nor I yours.
- I dreamt that I sailed through your body and pressed my eyes inside the surface of your eyes.  But I saw nothing.
- What do you see when you are not dreaming?
Pause
- Often I see nothing but the red clouds of your blood collapsing and rising; some torn like rotting fabric, some thickening into waves.  Beyond them, there is nothing.  Sometimes I see visions: the dome of your skull inlaid with carvings; yellow leaves drifting in skies of blood; water shimmering inside the palms of your hands. I hear the music of your body, the spheres and hollows of your joints whispering as they move one inside the other, the steady pulse of your blood.

I drift in the cosmos of your body, waiting for eternity.
 
 

2.

- Do you hear that, Jean?
- Do I hear what?
- That howling.
- I don't hear anything.
- They're howling in heaven, all the angels and the saints, the Holy Ones, they're howling with laughter. 
- I don't hear anything.
- They've discovered that when God fashioned Adam from clay he mixed in some impurity; a toenail clipping of his perhaps, or a hair from his arse.  That little mistake of God's is how I came to be. 
- I don't understand.
- I began in that cast off speck of him.  Don't you hear the Holy Ones howling?  It sounds like water cascading down a mountainside.
- I don't hear anything.
- God had kept his mistake a secret.  But the Holy Ones were puzzled.  How could I come to be?  There was a great debate in heaven; but patience was lost, tempers became frayed, and it turned into a brawl.  The noise got on God's nerves.  So to shut them up, he told everyone what happened.  Now the laughter's driving him mad.
- You talk about things that I don't understand, Jacques.
- That little piece of God's waste festered inside Adam. It became a tiny sack of fluid that stank of God.  Slowly it began to evolve, absorbing Adam's blood, becoming like him.  It grew a head, a spine, a gut, its nerve cords forming, its organs pulsing. 
- Jacques . . . .
- It has been there in every man since Adam.
- Jacques . . . .
- I am only the first to appear.
Pause
- What do you mean?
- One day every man will be like you.  We are tomorrow's humanity.
 

3.

- I am blindfolded and gagged.
- Another dream?
- No, it's as I am.
- I can hear you, Jacques.  And I know that you can see.
- What I see is always circled by the walls of your body. You are my cradle and my coffin, Jean.
- Be calm, brother.
- Tear me out.
- What?
- Tear me out of you.
- Even if I could, both of us would die.
- Let me see my shadow.  Let me lie on the bare ground and breathe the air.  Let me die, Jean.
- Be calm, brother.
- Are you afraid?
- I'm afraid for you.
- And for yourself.
- Every man is afraid for himself.
- I am not.  I am a foetus; my skull is a globe of blood. 
I am an insect in a nest of bones.
- These are nightmares, Jacques.
- I am a nightmare.  I am my own nightmare.
- Then you must wake, Jacques. 
Pause
- Tear me out! 
 

4.

- I have never seen snow falling. 
- It falls nonetheless
-  I've never seen your face.
- It's unremarkable.
Pause
- My arms are like a bird's wings.  You've told me so.
- It's true.  Perhaps you are an angel.
- Dogs bark at me.
- They're frightened of what they've never seen before.
- I've never seen a leaf, the plate you eat off, a doorstep or a buttonhole.
- You needn't be frightened of those things.
Pause
- I don't know what I am.
- You are nothing anyone has known before.
- I'm lonely.
- I know.  As I am.
Pause
- But you have seen snow falling.
 

5.

- There is always someone looking at us.  Where can we hide?
- Everyone who looks at us also looks away.  That is when we have our lives to ourselves.
- As one turns away from us, another turns towards us.
- Our moment is brief.
Pause
- I dreamt that I drowned and was washed up on the shore of heaven.  I fell through the mouth of god.  I heard the hush of rain falling on grass.
- I have had the same dream.
 
 
 

Merrick's Dreams
 

1.

My wild dreams / are the cause of my deformities / each dream / distorts me further / if I dream of a dog / a rat / even a comb for my hair / my body erupts / with chaotic growths / my skull expands / my skin blossoms like fungus / when I dream / my organs are gorged with blood / my bowels quake / black gall rises in my mouth / my transformation is a torment

I dream that my entrails / reeking / black ropes of blood / are bloated with unborn children / each one a tiny replica of myself / screaming / clutching / crawling upwards / towards my twisted mouth / I dream that I have the body of a animal / fangs / talons / my back covered with black feathers / my belly hanging open / a huge maw / sucking at the earth / I dream that I am made of stone / that I am no bigger than a spider / imprisoned in a thimble / I dream of wild journeys / to the centre of the moon / into the womb of my mother / into the mouth of god 

As I dream /  my body becomes another body / I am creation gone mad / my bones melt / expand / harden / becoming other bones / black tumours grow on them / like flowers of coal /  my face / a mash of stinking flesh / becomes another face / more terrible than the last / I wake up screaming / I wake up / and I cannot recognize myself
 

2.

My body plagues me at every step.  My desires are answered by the mutations of my flesh. 

How can a man be without dreams and desires; how can he not hope for their fulfilment?

I plan to build a lighthouse.  According to my atlas, the Indian Ocean would be the best location.  Between 106 and 108 degrees longitude, ocean currents and prevailing winds would make any approach to my lighthouse extremely difficult.  This plan has caused partial, asymmetric enlargement of my hands and feet.

I have a strong desire to visit the countryside.  There I would observe nature in all her beauty.  This desire has caused the overgrowth of one side of my face and body, known as hemihypertrophy.

I intend to groom myself and dress like a gentleman; I would like to introduce myself to polite society, perhaps even attend a theatre performance.  This intention has led to my skin becoming rough, darkened and discoloured.

I would like to take up painting.  Watercolours would be my preference.  I could perhaps attend classes to learn the necessary skills. This desire has caused a severe overgrowth of soft tissue on the soles of my feet, known as plantar hyperplasia

I desire fervently to enjoy the company of elegant women; 
I would like to talk with them about all kinds of things, including gardening and current events.  This desire has caused the enlargement of my head and the asymmetry of my skull.

I would like very much to sleep lying down, like a normal human being.  I am prevented from doing so as the weight of my head would crush my wind pipe and I would suffocate.  This dream of mine has caused the growth of several subcutaneous tumours beneath my skin and lymphangiomas tumours on my skin's surface.

Yet still I hope.

I am as full of suffering
As a clock with time.
 

3.

When I was two years old
My mother noticed
My skin darkening in patches,
Lumps beginning to grow
On my neck, my chest,
On the back of my head.
I grew stranger each year.

My mother,
A beautiful woman,
Possessed of every grace
A mother should possess,
Who loved me more than life,
Began to sicken
At the sight of me,
Left me alone for long hours
To grow in the darkness of my horror,
To grow stranger
Than a dream.

At twelve years old
She sent me to work in a factory.
There I was tormented
By men better shaped than me,
With bodies they could show 
In the light of day,
Who did not need to hide
In shadows
And behind bolted doors.

The circumference of my head
Is thirty six inches.
My feet are gigantic.
My right hand
Is so deformed as to be useless.
My mouth is merely a hole.

I will go back
To my time of growing,
I will go back
To my mother's arms.
I will discover the moment
When she abandoned me
To the torments of the world.
I shall tell my mother
The story of my life;
I will whisper each humiliation to her.
Each rock thrown at me,
Each gob of spit,
Each taunt
I will feed her
Until she is fat
With my suffering.

My mother will know her son,
Born like any child, washed in his mother's blood,
Like any child, suckling at her breast,
Cradled to sleep In the scent of her skin.

All the pity I have known,
The sly glances,
The forced smiles,
The cold interest
Of scientific men,
I will shower on her
Whom I love and admire above all others,
Whose body sustained me briefly,
In the darkness
Where I should have remained,
Before the agonies of light and air.