On finding out about their father’s death, a young troubled person searches for a peaceful place to bury his body. They then decide to offer him a burial in his homeland. But this area of the world is devastated, the cemeteries are full and his father’s relatives reject his remains. During this journey, they will meet Simone, an angry young girl who has also faced grief, and many other young people of their age. On their way, they will experience the realities of each and every one of them and ensure that this father becomes the symbol of the lost loved one of each of them.

Littoral was created in 1997 by a group of friends in their thirties who were asking many questions related to existence. Twenty years later, the new generation shares the same angst about love, sorrow, fear, death.

Legendary Work Makes Its Shanghai Debut

Littoral has remained a vital presence on French and international stages ever since its premiere in 1997 and continuously revived and refined over nearly three decades. This enduring vitality across borders springs from the universal resonance of its themes. As La Colline – Théâtre national emphasises, this “re-creation” is far more than a simple revival. It is a contemporary response, offered by each new generation of young artists as they grapple with the same timeless questions – life, love, death, and what lies ahead.

All the spirit of Littoral, a humanist road-play that sees a son travel through a war-torn country to bury their father and found a tribe, is on full display.

——Phillipe Chevilley, Les Echos

A large cast, the themes of war, travel and family, orchestrated with depth and originality.

——Armelle Héliot, Le Quotidien du Médecin

With Littoral, the first part of his tetralogy Le Sang des Promesses (The Blood of Promises), which has helped him make a name for himself in France and abroad, Wajdi Mouawad confirms his talent for large-scale frescoes and odysseys.

——Anaïs Heluin, Le courrier de L'Altas

The poetry begins with the search for a place to bury the father, magnificently played by Gilles David in this cast. A dead father who talks and rots in the sun. A father who represents all the fathers of the region, all those who could not be buried, like those who died of Covid and were deprived of a funeral with all their loved ones. Wilfrid’s quest becomes a quest shared by Simone, Amé, Sabbé (an extraordinary Paul Toucang with flying arms), Massi and Joséphine. Not forgetting, remembering names, honouring the dead, continuing to live despite the atrocities of a senseless war.

——L'étoffe des Songes

Theatrical Aesthetics of Littoral

In Littoral, Wajdi Mouawad brings together a stunning range of stage techniques and performative gestures, crafting images that linger in the eye and a narrative that unfolds in layered depth. The opening is a surreal vision of domestic life: furniture and clothing hang suspended from ropes cascading from above, as if the clutter of living has been hoisted into the air. Actors change costumes onstage before our eyes, then weave their way through this suspended chaos – and in that moment, spectacle and story begin as one.

Throughout the production, a curtain of elastic ropes serves as a stage apparatus of many meanings. It is a screen for projections, a wall that can be shifted or breached, a divider that also connects. As actors move through it, they seem to traverse the very rift between memory and the present.

Mouawad also imports cinematic grammar into the theatre. Conversations taking place in a separate narrative space appear both live on stage and on a film screen, so that the audience sees two layers of time and space interwoven at once. And his playful dismantling of theatrical convention brings a buoyant delight: actors trace blue tape across the floor with elegant choreography – now a swimming pool, now the sea. A few spare lines, and a world takes shape. Even more charming is how the actors shift scenes through improvised dialogue, dissolving the fourth wall with a casual turn of phrase. The air between stage and spectator begins to breathe.

Production Iperté – Institut Poétique de Recherche Théâtrale

Production at the creation La Colline – Théâtre national

With the support of Institut Français de Chine, Hybridités France-Chine

Photos ©Tuong-Vi Nguyen

Wajdi Mouawad

Born in Lebanon in 1968, Wajdi Mouawad fled the country for France between the ages of 10 and 15, before settling in Quebec, where he lived until the 2000s. He has written and directed adaptations of classical and contemporary works as well as his own texts, published by Leméac / Actes Sud. His novels are entitled Visage retrouvé (2002) and Anima. While directing the Quat'Sous Theatre in Montreal from 2000 to 2004, he created the play Incendies (Scorched), adapted into film by Denis Villeneuve in 2010. Among the plays he has directed are Littoral, seen at the Festival d'Avignon, Tous des oiseaux, Notre innocence, Fauves, Mort prématurée d'un chanteur populaire dans la force de l'âge, and his trilogy, 'Domestique' Mère / Seuls / Sœurs, Racine carrée du verbe être, and most recently, Journée de noces chez les Cromagnons. Wajdi Mouawad stepped down as director of La Colline – Théâtre national in March 2026 and founded Iperté – Institut Poétique de Recherche Théâtrale.

Iperté – Institut Poétique de Recherche Théâtrale

Iperté – Institut Poétique de Recherche Théâtrale is a space imagined by Wajdi Mouawad where artistic creation, critical thought, and transmission come together. Conceived as a living place of dialogue between performance, writing, and research, Iperté seeks to circulate language and ideas through multiple forms: on stage, in books, in public debate, and through collective experiences. At the crossroads of theatre, literature, collective reflection, and transmission, Iperté thus envisions itself as an institute in motion, attentive to the voices of today and turned toward those of tomorrow.

La Colline – Théâtre national

La Colline – Théâtre national is one of the five state theatres dedicated to drama in France. Since its establishment in 1988, its status as a national theatre mandates its mission to promote contemporary works. Thus, La Colline has shaped its identity around the presentation of plays from the contemporary theatre repertoire. It has been managed since 2016 by Wajdi Mouawad, whose artistic project centers on four guidelines: writing and creation, diversity, youth, and territory. Beyond creation and distribution of works by living authors, La Colline pursues a public service mission aimed at opening up to a greater number of people and encouraging the discovery of contemporary writings for audiences in all their diversity.