Edward's Diary

De Ezra and Miriam Elia by Brigitte Dedry and Véronique Dumont "Wednesday, May 7: Two of them came today, they pulled me out of the cage by force and put me in a sort of labyrinth. They can deprive me of my freedom, they will never have my soul. My name is Edward, and I AM A HAMSTER." Unearthed by chance at a flea market, Edward's diary is the invaluable legacy of a rodent to the human species. One can only be moved by the profound reflections of this superior nihilistic mind. Edward is the child of Desproges and Schopenhauer. Didn't he also note that if solitude is the guarantee of freedom, it is also that of boredom? Boredom deceived by the tragicomic - very comic - reflections of this morose, egotistical rodent, who deceives his aspiration to an existence worthy of the name, by gregarious occupations (eating, drinking, having a friend, making love, and lying down in the straw). Who better than a hamster condemned to the torture of the wheel can understand what alienation, the emptiness of existence, and the banality of daily life really are? Need it be added that Edward is very much like us? Véronique Dumont and Brigitte Dedry have taken hold of the iconic book by Miriam and Ezra Elia to make it a burlesque and funny work where puppets, illusions, and songs converge to serve the highly humanistic reflections of Edward, the nihilistic hamster. "He had everything he needed on this island, enough to drink and eat, a house, a bed to sleep in, but to smile, no one, and his face was like frozen." Friday or the Wild Life, Michel Tournier Based on "Le journal d'Edward, nihilistic hamster" by Miriam and Ezra Elia | Traduction Rose Labourie | Directed by Brigitte Dedry and Véronique Dumont | Avec Brigitte Dedry and Véronique Dumont | Assistant director Anne Romain | Scenography and costumes Sandrine Clarck | Lighting creation Aurélie Perret | Sound creation Pierre Kissling | External view Galia De Backer. Published by Flammarion. A co-production Le Vilar, Théâtre de Poche and DC&J Création. With the support of the Fédération Wallonie-Brussels, Service Général of Artistic Creation/Adult Theater, of the Tax Shelter of the Belgian federal government, of Inver Tax Shelter and of the Loterie Nationale.