Autofiction in 3D
“On the thin line of auto-fiction”
Emmanuel Schwartz unashamedly recounts his spectacular freefall. On stage, surrounded by an ingenious 3D projection system, he walks without a net, one step at the time, on the thin line of auto-fiction.
The young prodigy’s fall is breath-taking, and yet you can see how it could happen: a crowd as vast as an ocean cheers and applauds, you pluck the stars from the sky, then your heart breaks, drugs, any drugs, to fill the cracks, sickening lies to loved ones, waking up in a plane, a limousine, a gala, an alleyway, you don’t know anymore, isolation, self-hatred, money burning a hole in your pocket. As in an anonymous addiction recovery group, we, the audience, are cast as witnesses and become part of the healing process. Will we grant this beautiful and ill-fated poet our absolution?
This account of an out-of-control downward spiral is delivered in the form of a hair-raising tale, with an ingenious stage device of video projections for small comfort. The actor, a somnambulist and tightrope walker, inches forward without a net, one step at a time, along the vertiginous wire of autofiction.