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Abstract
This article explores issues of identity, exile, and performance in 1962 (1998) and Babel Taxi (2004), two foundational plays by the Algerian-born author Mohamed Kacimi. 1962 is an autobiographical play written during Algeria’s “black decade” about the effects of Algeria’s independence on two particular characters, while Babel Taxi allegorically retells the legend of the Tower of Babel in modern-day Iraq at the start of the Iraq War. In these plays, the characters’ pasts and memories are full of gaps (trous). The article argues that the characters’ attempts to fill in these trous with performance illuminate their experience of exile as a permanent psychological state. This endeavor not only applies to Arabic-speaking, Islamic characters, but also to those from Argentina, Israel, France, China, India, and beyond. Further, both plays highlight the transformative power of performance. However, whereas the characters in 1962 use performance to elevate their personal narratives of the past and resist the domination of official History, the resurrection of biblical legend through performance in Babel Taxi ends in violence and disunity. Performing the past can facilitate connection and offer solace from the confusion of exile, but it can just as easily sow discord in the present.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest reported by authors.
Notes
1 Kacimi’s second play is also a biblical and allegorical story of identity and exile, though it is a monologue titled La Confession d’Abraham (2000). We will not focus on this play as we are only dealing with Kacimi’s multicharacter plays.
2 We use the term “compulsively” to gesture toward Aciman who suggests that exiles practice what he calls “compulsive retrospection”: “[w]ith their memories perpetually on overload, exiles see double, feel double, are double. When exiles see one place they’re also seeing—or looking for—another behind it” (13).
3 In a personal interview (27 November 2018), Kacimi described 1962 as a fundamentally autobiographical play.
4 For historical accounts of Algeria in the 1990s and early 2000s, see Martinez; Stora. For literary production by Algerians during this time, see Boualit; Mehta; Mokhtari. See also Crowley’s recent essay collection that addresses Algerian history, literature, and culture from 1988 to 2015.
5 All translations are our own.
6 Kacimi has stated that, in a drame, “on a des chances de s’en sortir” [“it is possible to escape”] whereas in a tragédie we have no “chance de s’en sortir, l’issue est souvent la mort, surtout dans le théâtre antique [où] les personnages affrontent des êtres supérieurs (Dieux, etc.)” [“chance to escape ; the exit is often death, especially in ancient theater in which the characters are faced with superior beings (Gods, etc.)”] (Personal Interview, 16 February 2019).
7 In so doing, Kacimi diverges from his fellow countrypersons who focus on the events specific to the black decade (Gross, “Performing at the Crossroads” 1260). Yet, Kacimi does resemble other Algerian writers of the 1990s insofar as he speaks of “urgence” in the preface of 1962 (6), a term that frequently appears in the writings of Assia Djebar, Slimane Benaïssa, and many others, to describe the violence that occurred during the this time and that these writers witnessed (Boualit 35-37; Mokhtari).
8 Both utopia and the wound can be understood as manifestations of the trou: utopias exist nowhere (“utopia” comes from Greek οὐ “not” + τόπος “place”), and are thus unattainable, while a wound is a painful absence.
9 1962 is comprised of twelve subtitled but unnumbered scenes. We refer to the subtitles and page numbers when quoting passages from this play.
10 1962 employs the Mediterranean Sea as a complex metaphor of togetherness, of the “wound” that separates Nadia and Gharib, Algeria and France, of abundance as opposed to lack, and so forth. For recent scholarship on the Mediterranean Sea, especially as a multifaceted trope, see elhariry and Talbayev; Esposito; Talbayev.
11 For a recent study of colonialism and education, with a particular focus on Said’s work and colonial Algeria, see Harrison. He does not mention 1962 but does analyze Kacimi’s short autobiographical text titled “A la claire indépendance” (168-169), portions of which do make their way into 1962.
12 We borrow the expression “passé troué” from Baussant (7). Gross also refers to this expression when suggesting that, for both “pieds-noirs” and “pieds-noirs musulmans,” “it was virtually impossible to ‘turn the page’ of history, for it had been effectively ripped out of the book” (“France and Algeria” 217).
13 Kacimi himself left Algeria to settle in France in 1982, though he claims that he has “toujours senti exilé en Algérie d’abord, en France ensuite” [“always felt exiled, first in Algeria, and then in France”]. Bouziane Ben Achour, “Entretien avec Mohamed Kacimi,” in El Watan (19 October 2000), cited in Gross, “Mohamed Kacimi,” 447.
14 We return to this part of the world—the historic region of southern Mesopotamia of the Fertile Crescent, or modern-day Iraq—in the next part of the article on Babel Taxi.
15 Babel Taxi is comprised of ten untitled but numbered scenes. We provide scene and page numbers when quoting passages from this play.
16 This literal digging into the earth to uncover a mass grave echoes Nadia’s metaphorical digging in 1962.
17 “A Moooooooooort” is a pun on the name “Amort” and the French expression “to death.”
18 The feminine of “moule” [mold] is also vulgar slang for a vagina, so Amor might be punning on the word to mean that he was figuratively birthed from Mesapotamia’s wreckage. This interpretation is warranted since he uses the vulgar term “cul” to refer to his backside.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Michael Meere
Michael Meere specializes in representations of violence in French-language theater and performance. His articles have appeared in journals such as the French Review, L’Esprit Créateur, Early Modern French Studies, and the Romanic Review. While his expertise lies in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, his interest in Mohamed Kacimi’s work derives from his teaching at Wesleyan University.
Sophie Dora Tulchin
Sophie Dora Tulchin graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Wesleyan University in May 2020. She received the Mann Prize in French, awarded annually to the senior showing the most outstanding achievements in the Romance languages, and her thesis on transgender rights and the Americans with Disabilities Act earned High Honors as well as the M.G. White Prize for best thesis in American Studies.