The Performance of Identity in Wajdi Mouawad's "Incendies"

Abstract

This thesis is an analysis of Wajdi Mouawad’s Incendies, the second play in his tetralogy Le Sang des promesses. It is the stories of multiple journeys of self-discovery taken by characters seeking to better understand their own history and present identity as it exists within a complex and continually shifting socio-political web. Through the lenses of Postcolonial and Trauma theory, I endeavor to do a close reading of the play script as well as semiotic investigation of Mouawad’s original staging of the production in comparison with Richard Rose’s mise en scène of the play in English, Scorched. I will demonstrate in this thesis that the techniques suggested by Postcolonial and Trauma theorists for the re-establishment of identity in the face of loss are exemplified in Incendies, both in the fictional world of the play and its reception by an audience.