Our Poisoned Bodies - Theatre

Show & Culture

In *Our Poisoned Bodies*, writer and director Marine Bachelot Nguyen (*The Son*, *Söhne* in the German translation, 25•26) immerses us in the story of Tran To Nga, a Vietnamese woman who has spent her entire life committed to multiple struggles: anti-imperialist, feminist and ecological. A young resistance fighter in the jungle during the Vietnam War, she was exposed, like so many others, to the US spraying of Agent Orange. Today, from France, she is pursuing a historic lawsuit against US agrochemical companies, denouncing the devastation this poison has inflicted on people’s bodies and the earth. Throughout her life, this woman’s resistance to colonial, imperialist and capitalist powers has been exemplary. Brought to life by the young actress Angélica Kiyomi Tisseyre-Sékiné, this documentary theatre piece interweaves text, performance, video and archival footage with Tran To Nga’s life to tell the story of what is considered the first ecocide in history: a crime against all living things, resonating with other past and ongoing projects of devastation. A powerful work that explores the alliance between fiction and documentary, the intersections of the body and politics, and feminist and postcolonial questions, while connecting the struggle for ecology with political history and highlighting the vitality of wounded bodies, still fighting and demonstrating resilience.