Theater - Listen Closely

Éloïse Mercier creates performances of great delicacy that invite the audience to listen. Following *Une goutte d’eau dans un nuage* and *Les Meutes*, she continues her poetic exploration, drawing parallels between our inner landscapes and the depths of the ocean.

Two apartments, mirror images of each other; two interiors that are nothing alike; and two neighbors who will learn to get along. Where does “inside” begin and “outside” end? Why step out of your shell when the outside world might threaten us?

Drawing inspiration from Alain Resnais’s *Mon oncle d’Amérique* and Franz Kafka’s *The Burrow*, Éloïse Mercier highlights the gaps between what is said, heard, and understood. Accompanied by artist-researcher Antoine Bertin, who studies fish communication in the Mediterranean, she gives her play a hybrid dimension, straddling science and fiction, exploring all the things we don’t hear. Because they are too subtle, fleeting, or microscopic—but also because we don’t want to hear them, or because we can’t bring ourselves to express them.

Through this production, she questions our ability to connect with one another: for, deep down, aren’t we always a mystery to one another?

Text and Direction: Éloïse Mercier
Performed by Éloïse Mercier, Gautier Boxebeld, and Thibault Duval.
Production: Cie Microscopique