Overview:
Within the upstairs corridor of the Pyepoudre Cultural Middle, actor Edouard “Youyou” Baptiste delivers a gripping efficiency within the play “Pye Kase,” offered on Saturday, November 29, through the twenty second version of the Quatre Chemins Theater Competition. By way of the story of a compatriot who collapsed within the American snow on his solution to ship a message impressed by Dessalines, Youyou brings to life the autobiographical textual content of Jacques Adler Jean-Pierre, written after he fractured his foot.
PORT-AU-PRINCE — The “Competition Quatre Chemins,” led by director Man Régis Jr. and thought to be one among Haiti’s most influential theater occasions, continues to push artists to reinterpret the nation’s current via intimate, private narratives. This 12 months’s theme, Pawòl Tifi, facilities tales of exile, reminiscence, small histories, the struggles of ladies and women, and the on a regular basis truths that form Haitian life — a reminder that the smallest testimonies typically reveal the deepest realities.
One of many works that almost all totally embodied that spirit was “Pye Kase,” carried out by Edouard “Youyou” Baptiste on the Pyepoudre Cultural Middle on Nov. 29.
An evening settles over the upstairs corridor of the Pyepoudre Cultural Middle, and the viewers’s silence takes maintain of the ambiance earlier than the highly effective voice of actor Youyou breaks the room’s stillness. It’s the cry of a survivor, a defender of Haitian sovereignty, a sufferer of misfortune in america. Strolling with crutches, the actor Youyou reconstructed the ordeal of a compatriot residing in america who collapsed within the snow, fracturing his left foot on his solution to a convention to ship a message impressed by Dessalines’ imaginative and prescient of freedom.
The play is tailored from an autobiographical textual content by Jacques Adler Jean-Pierre, written after his personal foot fractured within the U.S. This second pressured him to confront the loneliness of exile, the fragility of the physique, and the painful distance from house.
“Because the textual content says, misfortune is a part of our expertise; we can not anticipate it or know the place it would come from. And whenever you attempt to keep away from it, that’s exactly when it strikes.”
Actor Edouard “Youyou” Baptiste
Youyou’s efficiency leans into these silences — the pauses, the breath, the load of being removed from Haiti but nonetheless carrying its unresolved wounds. His portrayal strikes between humor and ache, echoing the methods many Haitians overseas navigate uncertainty.
“Pye Kase” will not be merely the story of a damaged foot — it’s the story of a life damaged open. Behind this incident lies a a lot heavier story: that of a pressured and painful exile. Jean-Pierre fled Haiti amid rising insecurity and kidnapping threats, becoming a member of the multitudes of compatriots who’ve left in quest of security. But within the U.S., he discovered a distinct sort of precarity — financial hardship, dislocation, and the emotional fracture of being uprooted.
“This textual content is a journey for me, a trial in life, as a result of every part stated within the textual content is true, as misfortune actually does occur. And whereas I used to be rehearsing the textual content, one among my kids fell and broke each of his clavicles,” Baptiste informed The Haitian Occasions.
Because the actor recounted mendacity on a hospital mattress whereas medical doctors ready to implant metallic helps into his bones, the viewers confronted a deeper query of what it means to heal when the place you come from stays unhealed.
“Misfortune is a part of our expertise; we can not anticipate it or know the place it would come from. And whenever you attempt to keep away from it, that’s exactly when it strikes,” added Baptiste.
Under are scenes from the theater play Pye Kase, part of the twenty second version of the Quatre Chemins Competition.
