Héritage

»What remains« – this simple but existential question is at the heart of Belgian actor Cédric Eeckhout’s production » Héritage« (»Inheritance«), for which he puts his mother Jo Libertiaux on stage, in order to create a very personal monument to her and to all mothers. As if he were trying to forestall a grief that in fact still lies in the future, he searches on stage, together with the musician Pauline Sikirdji and his mother, for a language that will allow him to tell the story of her life, and to interrogate the material and immaterial inheritance that she will leave behind for him and his generation, when, one day, she is no longer there. Jo Libertiaux was born in 1945, and married at the age of 19. Together with her husband, an electrician, she lived the dream of the time: built a house, founded a family with four sons, travelled, bought new clothes and the most modern household appliances. Can such an apparently conventional life story serve as a model of emancipation? Absolutely, as far as Eeckhout is concerned, since Jo, who worked as a hairdresser her whole life, always wanted to be independent. She filed for divorce in 1982, at a time when this brought with it social stigma and economic precarity. She moved out of her big house and built a new life for her and her sons. For Cédric, as a gay man of his generation, his mother who fought for, won and protected her freedom and independence in a world dominated by men, is a hero. This production is his moving declaration of love for her.

CÉDRIC EECKHOUT was born in 1977 and worked as an actor for the theatre, among others with Anne-Cécile Vandalem, Falk Richter, Christiane Jatahy, Thomas Ostermeier and Mariano Pensotti and in film, among others with Rithy Panh and Thomas Vinterberg. »From here I build everything« was presented at FIND in 2017 as a Late Night Special, and then toured through all of Europe under the title »The Quest«.

ARTISTIC COLLABORATION: Eulalie Roux
STAGE AND COSTUME DESIGN: Bastien Poncelet
DRAMATURGY: Nils Haarmann

WITH: Cédric Eeckhout, Jo Libertiaux, Pauline Sikirdji