Le Chagrin des Ogres

Le Chagrin des Ogres (The Ogres’ Grief) tells the stories of Bastian, 17, responsible for a mass shooting in his high school, and of Laetitia, a teenager who wakes up in a hospital bed after a suicide attempt, thinking that her story is that of Natacha Kampusch who was imprisoned in a cellar for eight years. Between these two adolescents is a disquieting narrator with a childish voice, a sort of bloody doll, mocking and snide who observes them, and tells them tales.

In this back and forth between the three characters, Fabrice Murgia has penned a striking fable, first performed in 2009 when it was hailed by both spectators and critics alike. Based on news stories of imprisoned children and high school mass killers, the play is as pertinent in 2018 as it was nine years ago. In fact, anchored in our contemporary era, Le Chagrin des Ogres examines that particular passage from childhood to adolescence, an essential transition conveyed by a clever theatrical device that reveals its relinquishing, its renouncements, its fantasies and its poetry.