WECHY GIVES BIRTH TO “OUI!”

Long confined to maternity wards, where the acoustics do not always allow full appreciation of the script, childbirth has finally reached the stage. La DdC went to see “OUI!”, the play by Kevin de Wechy.

The Duchess likes the theatre.

She particularly enjoys that very particular moment when several hundred people agree to sit in the dark and watch a handful of others, under much brighter lights, do things they could sometimes quite easily do elsewhere.

This Sunday, however, the performance held an additional attraction.

A woman was to give birth.

The Duchess had made sure to arrive in plenty of time.

She wore a dark suit and a gold brooch, and had left her coat at the cloakroom in exchange for a small numbered ticket, which she immediately put in her bag so she would not have to look for it later.

The auditorium was slowly filling up.

Some audience members were reading the programme. Others were looking at their phones before being asked to switch them off. A lady coughed several times. A man stood to let two people pass whose seats were in the middle of the row.

The Duchess surveyed the scene.

Everything seemed ready.

“OUI!”, the play by playwright Kevin de Wechy, was not, in fact, entirely unfamiliar to the Duchess.

Several months earlier, its production team had approached Crestignac for financial support.

The application had therefore been forwarded to the DGCIPU — the Directorate-General for Knowledge, the Unknown, the Presumed and the Subsequent.

This was standard procedure.

Everything must go through the DGCIPU. Even the waters breaking.

Knownology had first established what was known.

There was a play.

There was a theatre company.

A woman was to give birth in it.

These three elements were deemed sufficiently known to allow the application to be forwarded to Unknownology, whose task was to determine what was not.

Several points did indeed remain unknown.

They were therefore duly recorded as such.

The application could then be forwarded to Presumology.

Having examined the known and unknown elements, it considered it reasonably possible to presume that the play would indeed be performed.

Subsequentology remained.

Its involvement was essential: at the time of the funding request, the performance had not yet taken place.

It therefore fell indisputably within the realm of the subsequent.

Knownologists, unknownologists, presumologists and subsequentologists were thus able to work on the project, assisted by their respective knownology officers, unknownology officers, presumology officers and subsequentology officers.

The workflow had a beginning.

No one thought it necessary to ask it for an end straight away.

The funds were eventually made available.

Crestignac was now helping to finance a birth.

The lights went down.

The Duchess fell silent.

She had always considered the audience’s silence an insufficiently recognised artistic contribution to the theatre.

The performance began.

She watched.

At the interval, she had a drink.

She exchanged a few words with several people, returned to her seat and noted with satisfaction that no one had occupied it in her absence.

Then the lights went down again.

The Duchess watched some more.

The woman continued her labour.

This was reassuring.

A few months earlier, that labour had still fallen within the remit of Subsequentology.

It was now observable.

The DGCIPU had therefore correctly anticipated its change of status.

Childbirth, long assigned a relatively stable line-up, was here enjoying an expansion of the cast.

A man was also giving birth.

The Duchess took note.

Then came the text.

Childbirth unquestionably benefits from leaving the maternity ward.

Until now, it had largely taken place there under acoustic conditions that did not always allow full appreciation of the script.

The theatre goes some way towards remedying this difficulty.

On stage, the spoken word has more room to breathe. Intentions become more legible, and the audience enjoys a distance that the immediate proximity of a midwife does not always permit.

La DdC particularly appreciated the work on the spoken word.

One line in particular deserves a moment’s consideration:

The Duchess let a few seconds pass before returning to her notes.

Some sentences require more space than others.

In its traditional hospital form, childbirth allows considerable room for technical instructions, encouragement and, occasionally, more spontaneous turns of phrase whose literary quality remains uneven.

Here, the theatre puts the text back at the centre.

The acting is assured, without excess. The direction intelligently supports the subject and gives childbirth the space it needs to unfold, without attempting to give birth on its behalf.

The breaking of the waters naturally constitutes an important moment in the performance.

It duly took place.

The Duchess took note.

The funding awarded several months earlier could now be reconciled with an observable reality.

A company had applied for a grant.

The DGCIPU had processed the application.

Crestignac had provided the funding.

They had given birth.

The service had been rendered.

The Duchess collected her coat.

She had kept the ticket.

La DdC — Crestignac

The situation has not changed. This proves that we have it under control.