Fouzia ELBAYED

The play ظلام (DL’âme), directed by young Moroccan filmmaker Amine Essahel, explores the social and psychological realities associated with streets and marginalized cultures. Presented by the theater company Masrah Okad, it features characters grappling with violence, familial conflicts, loneliness, and the challenge of building a future. Through their journeys, the performance questions the intimate wounds of a broken youth, caught between the weight of social determinism and the desire to break free from imposed models.

The uniqueness of this creation lies in the integration of rap, slam, graffiti, and DJ mixing into a theatrical writing that combines body movement, sound, light, and space. Amine Essahel, a graduate of the Higher Institute of Dramatic Art and Cultural Animation, and currently pursuing stage direction training in France, continues a line of inquiry already present in his earlier works Brenda and La Victoria, the latter of which received accolades in Jordan and at the National Theater Festival of Tétouan in 2023.

The director aims to make the street the true protagonist of the show. It is not merely a backdrop but a space where societal contradictions, power dynamics, and the aspirations of a youth seeking recognition come to light.

This study intends to analyze the dramaturgy of DL’âme through its scenographic choices, characters, and artistic languages, while making connections to the international theatrical repertoire and suburban cinema. These comparisons serve as critical tools and do not necessarily suggest direct borrowings from the director.

A Drama of Marginality: Sami and the Tragedy of Youth

At the heart of the play is Sami, portrayed by Mohamed Chahir. Coming from a conflicted family background, he rebels against a social and familial order that seems to limit his opportunities for emancipation. His relationship with a young student who shares in his suffering opens a fragile emotional perspective, where love emerges as a potential form of resistance to violence.

Sami’s trajectory thus transcends the individual narrative to question the social and emotional conditions of rebellion. The character faces a fundamental contradiction: he yearns for autonomy but remains trapped in an environment where relationships are marked by domination, frustration, and a lack of dialogue.

Familial violence serves as one of the major engines of this tragedy. The father, portrayed as a brutal authority figure who inflicts repeated violence on his wife, embodies an authoritarian view of the family. The domestic space, traditionally associated with protection, becomes a place of fear and suffering. The son’s rebellion signifies both a rejection of this violence and a search for an alternative way of existing.

This conflictuality recalls, in certain aspects, the theater of Bernard-Marie Koltès, particularly in In the Solitude of Cotton Fields, where speech becomes a space of confrontation, power, and difficult recognition. It also evokes the universe of Jean Genet, where marginalized figures challenge the norms defining social legitimacy.

However, DL’âme seems to contextualize these tensions within a contemporary urban reality where familial fractures intertwine with social exclusion and generational impasses. The conflict does not merely oppose individuals; it reveals a deeper crisis of transmission, authority, and the possibility of living together.

The introduction of another male character linked to security institutions expands this inquiry. Portrayed by Amine Bellamaazza as the father of the young girl, he is marked by the loss of his wife and appears trapped in an obsessive relationship with his work and weapon use. His role as a police officer, combined with his authoritative behavior, introduces a second form of power, this time situated in the public space.

The play thus juxtaposes two types of domination: that exercised within the family, and that manifesting in relation to institutional authority. This convergence gives violence a systemic dimension, without erasing the individual responsibility of the characters.

The Title "DL’âme": Darkness as a Metaphor for Inner Life

The title combines the Arabic word ظلام (meaning "darkness") with the French spelling DL’âme, suggesting the expression "of the soul." This bilingual play neatly encapsulates the psychological and symbolic dimension of the show: external darkness becomes a reflection of internal wounds.

The color black, utilized in the scenography and lighting, evokes fear, confinement, and social invisibility. It materializes the dark areas of the characters’ existence, their traumas, and their struggles to articulate their suffering. However, this darkness also possesses a political dimension, referencing the realities of popular neighborhoods that dominant representations of society often tend to marginalize.

This inquiry can be linked to Antonin Artaud and his concept of theater in which body, sound, light, and space act directly upon the viewer’s sensibilities. In The Theater and Its Double, Artaud challenges the primacy of text and envisions representation as a physical and sensory experience.

In DL’âme, rap, silences, the actors’ movements, and darkness can evoke the tensions of the characters rather than merely explaining them. The success of this device, however, depends on the coherence between its various elements: the visual and auditory intensity should serve the dramaturgy rather than reduce itself to a mere accumulation of effects.

The Three Containers: A Scenography of Exclusion

One of the most significant elements of the scenic design is the presence of three waste containers placed at the center of the stage. They serve as refuge, movement, and confrontation spaces for the characters while also acting as a metaphor for social relegation.

The containers symbolize an area where individuals seem cast aside at the periphery of the city. They represent what society seeks to distance itself from: nocturnal violence, invisible suffering, and lives deemed undesirable. Their presence serves as a reminder that exclusion is not just an individual situation; it is also the result of social mechanisms that separate legitimate spaces from devalued ones.

Their function is also that of silent witnesses. The containers seem to retain the memory of acts committed at night: assaults, prostitution, violence, and other transgressions. They thus become material witnesses of a society that produces its own shadow zones.

This scenography possesses a critical strength, yet it also raises an important question: how to represent marginality without equating marginalized individuals with waste? The political significance of the image depends on how characters occupy and transform this space. The containers can signify humiliation and confinement, but also survival and resistance.

This conception can be linked to certain theatrical inquiries on the autonomy of the scenic space, notably those of Adolphe Appia and Edward Gordon Craig. However, in Essahel’s work, the plastic space appears imbued with an immediate social significance: it conveys the relegation of the characters and positions their stories within a recognizable urban materiality.

Rap, Slam, and Hip-Hop: A New Dramatic Writing

The integration of hip-hop languages is one of the main characteristics of DL’âme. Rap, slam, graffiti, and DJ work are not merely cultural references meant to attract a young audience; they become means to develop characters, express their conflicts, and transform the rhythm of the performance.

Rap gives voice an assertive dimension, enabling the character to tell his story, denounce power dynamics, and affirm his identity. Slam favors a direct address, confession, and poetic exploration. Graffiti visually extends this desire to inscribe one’s presence in a public space that does not always recognize marginalized voices.

The DJ can play a role akin to that of cinematic editing. Through breaks, repetitions, rhythm changes, and silences, he organizes transitions between situations and contributes to making psychological tensions perceptible.

This hybridization evokes Antonin Artaud’s explorations of the expressive power of sound and body and contemporary experiments challenging the separation between dramatic text, music, and performance. It also invites reflection on the distinction between academic theater and popular cultures.

However, the modernity of the approach does not lie solely in the presence of rap. It depends on its ability to become a dramatic force: the lyrics must transform situations, illuminate characters, and advance the meaning of the work. Hip-hop then gains genuine artistic autonomy, rather than functioning merely as a marker of modernity.

A Cinematic Comparison: La Haine by Mathieu Kassovitz

The comparison with La Haine (1995) by Mathieu Kassovitz allows for a deeper exploration of the representation of marginalized youth. The film depicts three young men in a Parisian suburb caught in social tensions and complex relationships with institutions.

Like DL’âme, the urban space does not serve as a mere backdrop. It acts upon the characters, shapes their movements, and contributes to their symbolic confinement. The use of black and white, framing, and editing give the suburb both a realistic and metaphorical dimension.

In Kassovitz’s film, violence emerges within a system of tensions that surpass individuals, though it does not absolve them of responsibility. This perspective sheds light on Essahel’s dramaturgy, where familial violence, youth rebellion, and police authority compose a universe in which relationships are strained by distrust and domination.

The differences between the two works notably lie in their means of expression. Film constructs meaning through framing, editing, and image composition; theater operates with the immediate presence of bodies, the spatialization of voices, and a direct relationship with the audience. The value of a comparison does not consist of assuming that the play reproduces the film’s aesthetic but in understanding how it can translate similar issues through specific scenic means.

This comparison also invites critical vigilance: popular neighborhoods should not be reduced to violence and despair. The complexity of characters also depends on their ability to love, dream, create, and imagine alternative forms of life.

The Tragic Denouement: Love, Death, and Responsibility

The resolution of DL’âme is one of the most troubling elements of its dramaturgy. The young girl, portrayed by Hajar Mesnaoui, deprived of her mother and faced with an environment marked by authority and suffering, ultimately takes her own life after losing hope for a romantic future. Sami, for his part, finds himself cast out into the street. The end of the performance thus associates the girl’s death with the young man’s exclusion from life.

This resolution raises an essential question: why does death strike the young characters rather than the figures embodying authority and domination?

The dramaturgical choice can be interpreted as a representation of a society where victims bear the most extreme consequences of violence, while those in power remain unscathed. The young woman’s death does not necessarily constitute a moral sanction but can reveal the deadlock of a relational system that leaves no room for protection, listening, or hope.

The question becomes political: who is the victim, and who is the oppressor? Is authority sufficient to justify violence? Why do dominant generations seek to preserve their power at the expense of those aspiring to emancipation?

The choice to allow the authoritative figure to persist may intensify this interrogation. Rather than providing a reassuring resolution where the death of the responsible figure symbolically restores justice, the performance leaves the issue of power and its reproduction unresolved.

However, it is crucial not to reduce the young woman’s suicide to a mere dramatic device. This death, as well as Sami’s, demands a careful reading of her journey, her voice, and her motivations. The critical question is whether she is presented as a character with genuine autonomy or if her fate primarily serves to underscore the suffering of the male protagonist.

The tragic dimension of the resolution ultimately lies in love’s failure to provide an escape from violence. Love signifies a potential for salvation but remains fragile in the face of power dynamics and the deterioration of human bonds.

Between Political Theater and Social Critique: The Stakes of Creation

The play can be likened, in terms of social concerns, to Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed. He envisions theater as a space to interrogate power dynamics and make social conflicts accessible to collective reflection.

It is not to claim that DL’âme adopts Boal’s techniques but to highlight a common inquiry: can theater make visible the mechanisms that produce violence and exclusion?

The piece appears to respond to this question by relating family, public space, security institutions, and street cultures. Violence is no longer solely a product of individual behavior but becomes symptomatic of social relationships undermined by authoritarianism, fear, and a lack of dialogue.

The performance also prompts reflection on the responsibilities of adult generations. The figure of the violent father and the security man obsessed with his authority raise questions about the transmission of values. When authority merges with domination, it ceases to protect and becomes a source of threat.

One of the main challenges of the creation is to demonstrate that the fight against violence cannot be limited to denouncing its manifestations. It also requires reflection on power dynamics, individual responsibility, and the possibility of rebuilding emotional and social ties.

A Darkness that Reveals the Contradictions of the World

DL’âme by Amine Essahel proposes a meeting between theater, hip-hop, and social critique. Through Sami’s journey, the tragic fate of the young woman, the figures of authority, and the scenography of the three containers, the performance interrogates familial violence, marginalization, and the fragility of human connections.

The title, darkness, and urban objects construct a poetry of invisibility, while rap, slam, graffiti, and the DJ open the stage to languages arising from popular cultures. The connections with Artaud, Koltès, Genet, and Boal illuminate the bodily, relational, and political dimensions of this approach. The comparison with Kassovitz’s La Haine illustrates how urban space can become an actor in representation and a revealer of exclusion mechanisms.

The critical scope of the piece ultimately centers on one inquiry: why are those who suffer violence often the ones who pay the heaviest price? By making love a fragile possibility and death a tragic outcome, Essahel confronts the audience with the responsibilities of authority figures and the difficulty of breaking cycles of domination.

The artistic success of this creation hinges on its ability to transcend the spectacular representation of suffering to build a dramaturgy where characters retain their complexity and dignity. Hip-hop thus becomes not just a generational language but a means of amplifying marginalized voices and transforming street experiences into theatrical material.

The lingering question at the end of the performance is as much ethical as it is aesthetic: do we need more authority in this discordant society to combat violence, or more listening, justice, and love to prevent its recurrence? It is in this tension between power and humanity that the interrogative strength of DL’âme lies.