Between Love and Acceptance: An Examination of Marital Crisis in the Play “Je passe”

Fouzia ELBAYED

Presented on October 17, 2026, as part of the official programming for the 26th edition of the National Theater Festival in Tétouan, the play Je passe (أَمْرْ / Adaɛthiɣ) features the Al Hoceima Theater Club and anchors contemporary Moroccan theatrical creation in a reflection on the contradictions of existence and the complexity of human relationships. Performed by Hoda Abaïr and Mohammed Bensaïd, with musical composition by Abdelaziz El Bakkali, this work turns the couple into a laboratory of the tensions that individuals face when confronted with otherness, social conventions, and their own limitations.

Written by Ahmed Sbiaa, a Moroccan playwright who favors idea-driven theater over linear narratives, the play relies on a unique marital situation to question universal problems: love and its disillusionments, beauty and ugliness, memory and oblivion, but above all, the challenge of accepting the other without trying to mold them to one’s expectations. The staging by Youssef El Arkoubi, articulated through the spaces, lighting, and the actors’ performances, allows the audience to perceive the spectacle as a composition where visual and auditory elements contribute to meaning-making.

At the crossroads of black comedy, absurd theater, and existential reflection, Je passe encourages moving beyond the anecdotal marriage story to interrogate the mechanisms of human relationships. How can one live with the other without confining them to a preconceived image? And what remains of love when appearances, memories, and ideals clash with reality?

Ahmed Sbiaa: A Dramaturgy of Ideas and Human Contradictions

Ahmed Sbiaa occupies a significant position in the landscape of contemporary Moroccan theater. His writing is characterized by a desire to break free from conventional narrative structures, prioritizing symbolic situations, ideological confrontations, and the paradoxes of the human condition. Instead of constructing a plot based solely on a series of events, the playwright unravels meaning through the tensions between characters, their dialogues, and the self-perceptions and perceptions of others they maintain.

In Je passe, this orientation is expressed through an intentionally unusual initial situation: a man with a prominent nose and a woman with a long nose confront the realities of married life after their wedding. The physical peculiarity of the protagonists is not merely comedic; it opens up a discussion on aesthetic norms, social judgment, and how individuals construct themselves under the gaze of others.

This approach bears affinities with certain explorations in absurd theater, notably those of Eugène Ionesco in The Bald Soprano, where the deconstruction of dialogue and the disruption of ordinary conventions reveal the incoherence of certain social behaviors. It can also be related, in terms of existential reflection, to Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit: in this play, the confrontation between characters turns the gaze of others into an instrument of judgment and entrapment. These connections suggest a shared concern: to make theater a critical space for examining human relations.

Sbiaa’s uniqueness lies in his ability to transform an apparently anecdotal situation into a philosophical inquiry. The couple is no longer merely the subject of a romantic story; it becomes the site where contradictions between self-image, the desire for recognition, and the impossibility of fully mastering another’s identity are revealed.

The Couple: Between the Desire for Union and the Rejection of Difference

Marriage serves as the dramaturgical nucleus of the play. Generally associated with union, stability, and the promise of a shared future, it here appears as a space fraught with tensions that challenge idealized representations of love.

The two protagonists, embodied by Hoda Abaïr and Mohammed Bensaïd, do not merely represent opposing poles in a conflict between man and woman. Their confrontation can be interpreted as the clash of two subjectivities, each carrying its own expectations, vulnerabilities, and conception of shared life. The relationship becomes problematic when the other ceases to match the image one has constructed of them.

This dynamic aligns with a central query of existential philosophy: does the recognition of the other require renouncing one’s freedom or, conversely, acknowledging one’s own freedom? In No Exit, Sartre explores the tensions related to the gaze and judgment of the other. In Je passe, this issue finds a possible extension in the marital relationship, where attachment can coexist with the need to control the partner’s image.

The question then becomes not about which character holds the truth but about understanding how each contributes to the fragility of the bond. The conflict reveals the limitations of an understanding of love based on idealization: loving an image of the other does not necessarily mean accepting their reality.

The play thus raises a fundamental question: Can love survive when the other no longer corresponds to the ideal we have projected onto them? This inquiry grants the work its universal significance, as it concerns not only intimate relationships but also broader mechanisms of recognition and exclusion.

The Stage Space: The Marital Home as a Psychological No Exit

The domestic space serves as one of the primary conduits of meaning in the performance. Traditionally associated with protection and intimacy, the home can transform into a space of entrapment once the relationship it shelters becomes conflictual.

The spatial limitation focuses attention on the two performers and intensifies the exchanges’ impact. Gestures, movements, silences, and body postures gain particular importance, as they visibly manifest the tensions within the characters. Thus, space does not merely situate the action; it participates in the representation of inner conflict.

This conception recalls certain aspects of Sartre’s No Exit, where spatial confinement becomes the materialization of an existential deadlock. It also evokes certain dramatic universes of Samuel Beckett, particularly Waiting for Godot, in which the reduction of spatial anchors and the repetition of situations contribute to a feeling of uncertainty and anticipation.

However, it is essential to distinguish these approaches: in Beckett’s work, space contributes to a radical questioning of existence, time, and waiting; in Je passe, the marital home primarily allows for an examination of the difficulties of coexistence and the contradictions of intimacy.

Thus, the stage space possesses a dual dimension. It is, on one hand, a concrete place where the daily life of the couple unfolds, and on the other, a symbolic representation of their mental universe. The more the characters appear trapped in their relationship, the more the stage reveals the impossibility of resolving the conflict through mere change of location.

The Semiotics of Objects: When Memories Become Signs

Old photographs, gifts, letters, and a red rose compose a system of signs that give materiality to the marital memory. Their presence invites us to consider objects not as mere props but as dramatic elements capable of bringing the past into the present.

Photographs evoke a shared history and the images that characters retain of their relationship. They can juxtapose the recollection of previous happiness with the couple’s current reality, revealing the gap between idealized memories and present tensions.

Gifts materialize gestures of affection, promises, and expectations accompanying a romantic relationship. However, their significance remains unstable: an item once associated with tenderness can become a reminder of disappointment or a commitment that seems to have lost its meaning.

Letters, for their part, preserve traces of words spoken or feelings expressed at another time in the relationship. They establish a confrontation between past statements and present behaviors, between promise and fulfillment.

Finally, the red rose, traditionally associated with passion and love, possesses ambivalent value. It can evoke the persistence of romantic feelings but also the fragility of a bond threatened by disillusionment. Its meaning depends on the context in which it appears and how characters perceive it.

This dramaturgical use of objects can be contextualized within Symbolist theater and certain contemporary theater practices, where a material element concentrates an emotional or conceptual weight that transcends its utilitarian function. It also recalls how ordinary objects acquire existential value in some of Beckett’s universes.

Memory thus does not appear as an unquestionable refuge; it becomes a battleground between what the characters have experienced, what they believe they have experienced, and what they can now recognize. Objects thereby contribute to staging the difficulty of reconciling common history with individual transformations.

Black Comedy and the Aesthetics of the Absurd: Laughing at Human Discomfort

One of the features of Je passe lies in its ability to coexist with humor and existential anxiety. The physical uniqueness of the protagonists, the contradictions of their relationship, and the discord between the ideals of marriage and the difficulties of daily life pave the way for a type of humor that seeks more than just entertainment.

Black comedy draws its strength from this ambiguity: the audience can laugh at a situation while simultaneously perceiving the symbolic violence, discomfort, or suffering it encompasses. Laughter thus becomes a critical tool, capable of revealing aesthetic prejudices and the contradictions of social behaviors.

This ambivalence resonates with Eugène Ionesco’s Rhinocéros. Beneath the veneer of an absurd situation, the play interrogates conformism and collective adherence mechanisms. Likewise, in The Bald Soprano, humor and the disruption of language reveal the mechanical nature of certain social conventions.

In Je passe, the use of the grotesque can be interpreted as a means to destabilize the norms that determine what is considered beautiful or ugly, acceptable or unacceptable. The body then becomes a revealer of the criteria through which society evaluates individuals. The characters’ physical peculiarities, far from being mere comedic devices, interrogate the mechanisms of stigmatization and the difficulty of freeing oneself from external judgment.

The absurd dimension also manifests in the possibility that conflicts may recur without reaching definitive resolution. The dramaturgy, therefore, favors situations, oppositions, and ideas over a strictly linear narrative progression. This construction encourages a circular reading of the marital relationship: characters seem to return to the same questions because they are unable to move beyond the representations that confine them.

Laughter thus becomes a form of lucidity, revealing that even the most ordinary behaviors can disguise deep contradictions and that human beings sometimes contribute to the deadlock they suffer from.

Youssef El Arkoubi’s Staging: Space as Dramatic Language

The staging approach and the scenography attributed to Youssef El Arkoubi rest on a conception of theatrical space that transcends mere decorative function. Within this perspective, light, volumes, objects, and actors’ movements contribute to the construction of a genuine visual writing.

Light can specifically alter the perception of a place, isolate a character, emphasize a rupture, or change the atmosphere of a scene without requiring a material change in the set. It thus becomes a means of translating psychological tensions and evolving the meaning of the same space.

A streamlined and symbolic scenography also allows for the objects to gain particular visibility. In a work where photographs, letters, gifts, and the red rose carry a memorial weight, their arrangement and manipulation can help direct the audience’s gaze and organize the reading of the action.

This conception echoes Peter Brook’s explorations, particularly in The Empty Space, where the theatrical act is conceived around the encounter between a space, an actor, and an audience. It can also be related, with necessary caution, to Tadeusz Kantor’s work, which attributed to objects a unique scenic presence charged with memory and symbolic associations.

Such comparisons highlight the importance of scenography conceived as a component of dramaturgy. Space is no longer a neutral container; it becomes a partner in play, capable of extending the emotions of the characters and materializing their contradictions.

In the case of Je passe, this approach encourages observation of how light, visual composition, and the movements of the performers transform the marital home into a space of psychological confrontation. An accurate appreciation of directorial choices does, however, require reliance on the elements actually observed in the performance.

Music, Silences, and Rhythm: A Dramaturgy of Tension

The musical composition by Abdelaziz El Bakkali contributes to the show’s sonic identity. In a play primarily centered on the confrontation between two characters, rhythm arises not only from the succession of lines but also from pauses, silences, gestures, and variations in intensity.

Music can accompany emotional transitions, accentuate ruptures, or introduce contrast between the apparent banality of a situation and the gravity of the underlying conflict. Silences, for their part, can express what characters can’t articulate or prefer to avoid acknowledging.

This emphasis on unspoken elements can be juxtaposed with Harold Pinter’s theater, particularly in The Lover or Betrayal, where intimate relationships also unfold through the ambiguities of dialogue, omissions, and latent tensions. The intention here is not to equate the dramaturgical structures of the two authors but to highlight a possible commonality: words do not always reveal the truths of relationships, and silence can become a significant theatrical event in its own right.

Music and rhythm can thus help the audience feel what escapes explicit discourse. Their function is not merely to accompany the action but also to create a sensitive space in which the conflict becomes perceptible even before it is clearly articulated.

From Marital Intimacy to Social Critique: The Ethics of Acceptance

Beyond the romantic relationship, Je passe initiates a reflection on the social mechanisms of normalization. The distinction between beauty and ugliness, the expectations tied to marriage, and the desire to see the other conform to an ideal representation refer to norms that exceed the private framework.

Acceptance does not imply the absence of disagreement or the disappearance of conflicts. Rather, it presupposes the acknowledgment of otherness, meaning the ability to regard the other as an autonomous subject, irreducible to our expectations and projections. The problem arises when the relationship transforms into an endeavor of correction, domination, or conformity.

This play urges audiences to interrogate a fundamental contradiction: we long to be recognized for who we are, but we often struggle to grant the same freedom to others. The couple, in this light, serves as a mirror reflecting a broader social tension between individuality and collective norms.

This issue resonates across various traditions of international theater. In Sartre’s work, the relationship to the other can become a confrontation of freedoms; for Ionesco, social conventions risk morphing into absurd mechanisms; in Pinter’s work, intimate relationships reveal power tensions not always overtly displayed.

These perspectives illuminate the philosophical depth of the play without diminishing its singularity. By placing difference at the heart of marital conflict, Ahmed Sbiaa invites the audience to examine their own judgment criteria and how these influence their relationships with others.

The central concern is thus both ethical and sentimental: how can one build a relationship in which otherness is neither a threat nor a flaw to correct, but a constitutive dimension of shared life?

Synthesis of Main Dramaturgical Processes

Conclusion: Accepting the Other Without Renouncing Oneself

Je passe (أَمْرْ / Adaɛthiɣ) stands out for its ability to transform a singular marital situation into an exploration of the human condition. Through Ahmed Sbiaa’s symbolic writing and Youssef El Arkoubi’s staging, the interplay of the two performers and the expressive potential of stage space create tension between romantic ideals and the realities of relationships, memory and present, self-image and the gaze of others.

Connections to Ionesco, Beckett, Sartre, Pinter, Brook, or Kantor contextualize some of its preoccupations within an international theatrical horizon: the absurdity of conventions, existential entrapment, the ambiguity of human relationships, and the ability of stage space to generate meaning that resonates with the audience. However, these affiliations should be understood as comparative reading tools rather than evidence of direct influence.

Ultimately, the play’s value lies in its ability to turn the couple into a site for observing human contradictions. Love appears neither as a guarantee of harmony nor as a ready solution to differences. Instead, it becomes a demanding experience confronted by the necessity of recognizing the other in their irreducible uniqueness.

The fundamental question open-endedly posed by the play is: Can we genuinely love others without seeking to transform them into a version aligned with our own desires? By placing this inquiry at the heart of the representation, Je passe reminds us that the acceptance of the other is not a mere sentimental ideal, but a constant trial of freedom, lucidity, and mutual recognition.