Don't say woke . Say intersectional. Because, like the devil, the greatest trick of wokeness is to make people believe it doesn't exist! It's an intellectual constellation centered around a hub that claims to fight discrimination. However, it's the nature of this discrimination that can be surprising. We remember the astonishment at the accusations of racism leveled against the staging of Aeschylus's play The Suppliants . That was in 2019—five years already!—and many of us were probably discovering new words like " blackface " (white people darkening their skin) and " Afrophobic , " and feeling guilty, for lack of a sufficiently "awakened" conscience, of Western "colonialist and racist propaganda ." To top it all off, since Franglais has long been a national pastime, we learned that the play was "canceled," if not outright canceled.

Five years later, what was the true nature of this cancellation? Was it simply an incident caused by the intervention of a tiny minority group, the CRAN, self-proclaimed representative of all Black people in France? Was it an indignant reaction of outrage to an "avant-garde" show (in reality: aiming to recreate a performance under the conditions of the time), as others have suffered (such as Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris in 1972 or Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988)? Or was it rather a return to a more general, unspoken censorship, a sign of a break in the norms of representation imposed by a segment of the cultural world eager to acquire power and visibility in the name of the "fight against discrimination"?

Let us judge this through the situation of today's theatre. And to do this, let us look at two categories of means that give us access to the intentions of the authors (most often women) regarding the political and moral control of the content. From above: by listening to and reading what they themselves say about the message they wish to convey. From below: by examining certain programmes even in the villages.

From a broader perspective, let's examine the plays and debates organized during the Avignon Festival. There's Marie Ndiaye, who denounces fatphobia, the careers of women ruined by their husbands, the sexual abuse suffered by women in their childhood, and who even goes so far as to hold fathers responsible for infanticides committed by their wives ( La vengeance m'appartient , Gallimard- Folio ); Caroline Guiela Nguyen, who will introduce "diversity" to the Strasbourg National Theater, though we can assume it won't be social diversity; and Camille Giry, who has made a specialty of rooting out misogyny wherever it exists, which is to say, in fact… everywhere. In this symphony, the cultural (and now woke ) magazine Telerama plays its part by highlighting the shows to see. Admittedly, it will be noted, this trend probably affects the stand-up comedy scene more, being very much influenced by current trends, than the theatre itself, which continues to stage the classics. Nevertheless, today a troupe ("Pleurer dans'douche") can present itself as "queer and feminist"... but it's true that we're in Quebec, not France.

Back in France: the city of Paris is promoting "8 feminist plays," which in itself shouldn't be a problem (who here would dare argue against the fight for equality between men and women?) – unless it's about accusing men simply for being men. This fear is confirmed when we read, regarding one play ( Mondial Placard ), that "his male colleagues are convinced they are victims of discrimination. To denounce this injustice, Laurent, an ambitious and, above all, thoroughly misogynistic executive, decides to dress as a woman to finally experience the benefits of affirmative action ." Or again, in the play Consente-toi : "She knows: the man she loves is also her abuser. (...) this plunge into the intimacy of a couple that addresses the extremely taboo subject of marital rape. A poignant story about the disregard for consent . " The performing arts press is not to be outdone: L' Officiel des spectacles announces no fewer than 64 feminist plays in Paris, proof of the existence of a genre market. Certainly, not all of them are sexist, that is to say, misandrist, and do not all denounce a partly imaginary "patriarchy"; but the shift from the fight for equality to the unilateral denunciation of the wrongs of one sex against the other is made more likely by the current climate, and all too often the line between the two is blurred. We even saw a masochistic play, which "examines the patriarchy within their own family" (on France Culture, Saturday, September 17, 2022)...

However, anti-patriarchal feminism is not the only facet of woke theatre : it must also promote gender transition. Didier Ruiz dedicated himself to this task in his play, simply titled Trans , produced at the Avignon Festival and presented as "a show that liberates speech about gender" : "Why not reclaim this girl inside me?" declares the author. Or take the Quebecois playwright Marie-Claude D'Aoust, author of Fille de Trans (Daughter of a Trans ), who explains that she is telling her own story… But—and this cannot be stressed enough—wokeism is self-destructive: Laurene Marx's play Un tant soit peu (A Little Bit) , intended to "give more visibility to transgender people" and scheduled to run in January at Théâtre 13, was… canceled, following pressure from transgender people, on the grounds that the actress was not trans herself! And this is in order to " draw attention to the underrepresentation of trans people in the theatre world".

Let's now turn our attention to "grassroots France." We know that woke ideology is concentrated in the media, entertainment, and universities, primarily in humanities and social sciences departments. But this ideology is trickling down from major urban centers to rural areas, especially since the arrival of newcomers eager to bring their lifestyle and values ​​with them. In the Bocage Virois region, we've so far escaped its "cancellation," likely due to a lack of diverse offerings and a sufficiently large audience. In a village of 650 inhabitants, a stand-up comedian (described here as a "gesticulated lecture" ) denounces (by a man) patriarchy and all the flaws of men, to an audience that is half male, some admiring, others disillusioned. In another village (700 inhabitants), the story is about a person who undergoes gender reassignment. In Vire itself, the presentation of the year's program aims for "the abolition of patriarchy" (see press article from La Manche libre ).

It's clear that only one thing is missing from wokism to be truly inclusive: a concern for social inclusion, which seems to be the last thing on the minds of the writers and programmers. How can one fail to see how such a program is inherently unacceptable to a population, generally elderly, that still travels outside their homes to attend events (outings, meals, exhibitions, conferences, etc.), is often poorly educated, and whose relationship to theatre is limited to the plays once studied in school?

Thus the theatre reveals itself for what it truly is: not a theatre to "awaken consciences" or "make the world a better place" , but an elitist theatre, designed for those who make it and not for those who should see it.