Portrait de Rita

Portrait of Rita builds up an account of invisible forms of violence: that of ordinary racism, dehumanisation, downgrading. Rita Nkatbanyang, the mother of this captured child, gave up her prosperous business in Yaoundé to become a home help in Belgium. As for her son, he grew up in a world where his childhood anger is considered an adult crime.

Based on interviews with Rita, this one-woman show, by the Belgian performer Bwanga Pilipili, interlinks three viewpoints which challenge, listen to and collide with the brutality of the real world. These viewpoints come from Rita, from Bwanga Pilipili, herself a victim of racism, and from Laurène Marx. The latter is not present on the stage, but signs the script and staging of the show. There is no condescending or recovery offered here. Portrait of Rita tells of a meeting, and offers a crude, resonant account, never lacking in humour or poetry. Behind the social misery and insults, there is also the instinct for life, and the biting lucidity of the vulnerable, who refuse to be slotted into a single story. After Je vis dans une maison qui n’existe pas and Pour un temps sois peu, Laurène Marx, with her laser-like writing and her punchlines, illuminates the pain which Europe refuses to see, with a precision which is as upsetting as it is healing. 

Coproduction Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles