Our Poisoned Bodies - Theater

Show & Culture

In *Our Poisoned Bodies*, writer and director Marine Bachelot Nguyen (*Le Fils*, *Söhne* in the German translation, 25•26) immerses us in the story of Tran To Nga, a Vietnamese woman who has devoted her entire life to a multitude of struggles: anti-imperialist, feminist and ecological. A young resistance fighter in the maquis during the Vietnam War, she was exposed, like so many others, to the American spraying of Agent Orange. Today, from France, she is pursuing a historic lawsuit against US agrochemical companies, denouncing the devastation caused by this poison in human bodies and in the earth. Throughout her life, this woman’s resistance against colonial, imperialist and capitalist powers has been exemplary. Brought to life by the young actor Angélica Kiyomi Tisseyre-Sékiné, this documentary theatrical narrative 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 the living world that resonates with other past and ongoing projects of devastation. A powerful piece 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 showing the vitality of wounded bodies, still fighting and resilient.