Working most of the time far from France (Africa, the Indian Ocean, the Arab countries, etc), and always on the basis of interaction and mergings with artists of different origins, la fabriks has long (founded in 1987) and regularly (15 productions) confronted the concept of alterity. Its projects were always conceived as consequences of and deductions from encounters between different cultures, and generally did not initially address a precise theme (subject, text, fiction). According to what criteria could we have chosen the initial stands for such experiences ? And for what result ? The final meaning of our work depended exclusively on the quality that we were able to instil in the manner of meeting, and on our ability to understand someone else's viewpoint a sensitive truth and then materialise this point of view in a form that can be shared by others. The value of a stage production is not resolved in what it says and what it shows, but is also - and probably mainly - made up of what is not said or shown : this mystery that brings words and sounds together to make them express something that can't be said in words nor limited by language.
To make better stage productions based around such communication, it is perfectly logical that we should work on expanding our capacity to understand and empathise with the countries, cultures and societies that accept to receive us and hear us as foreigners. Our first productions, which were driven by enthusiasm and were exclusively naive, were mostly a disaster. Through ignorance and inexperience, we allowed ourselves to be overtly fascinated by immediate appearances, by appearances that were external and deceptive with regard to alterity. On the way, we learned to observe; at present, it is the interior of communication, the interiority of the other person that we are attempting to portray, i.e. this point at which the differences are no longer manifest but subtle, rooted deep within people, and at which they do not separate people but just set them apart, and at which when placed face to face they enrich the overall diversity. Thus our work has changed radically as we progressively advance towards one single goal. What we present currently on stage is resemblance. Alterity is no longer stated, it is apparent; it becomes, itself, the mystery that binds phrases and notes.
The search for an acuity in the perception of others, at a given instant, has led us to offer the stage not to the other person portrayed, but to the actual person played. We don't any more work with actors of a representation of the world, but directly with the players of a reality in the world and, by doing so, bring them to exhibit something of themselves in this reality : this is what we call the documentary stage play.