White dog

While Romain Gary was living in Beverly Hills with his wife Jean Seberg in the 1960s, he wrote Chien blanc, a largely autobiographical novel that describes an America in the grip of violent conflict. Martin Luther King had just been assassinated and the black community was fighting relentlessly to defend its rights.
It was against this backdrop that the couple took in an abandoned, gentle and affectionate German shepherd named Batka.

They become attached to him. But Batka is no ordinary dog. Sometimes he shows signs of incredible monstrosity and extreme savagery, turning into a ball of hatred.
So begins an investigation to try to understand and cure the animal...

Here, lighting effects, projections, puppets and actors converge to rewrite this poignant tale live, in which the act of manipulation takes on a political dimension. To the rhythm of Afro-American jazz drums, the large blank pages of the stage are blackened, written on or covered with archive photos, to tell the story of a society scarred by many shadows. Two years after R.A.G.E., and echoing the attacks of 2015, Les Anges au Plafond continue to illuminate Romain Gary's humanism by tackling the question of the conditioning of the human spirit.

What hope is there for the dream of fraternity and reconciliation when human stupidity rhymes with animal ferocity and when manipulation takes on the appearance of training? Can hatred be unlearned?