| This study deals with six plays by Koffi Kwahule, a writer from the Ivory Coast living in France. Firstly, we reflect on the ideas of Africanity and Blackness, as seen through the eyes of someone who has been living away from his place of birth for 30 years. What do notions associated with Africanity and being Black mean in these circumstances? Kwahule's theatre reflects this dilemma, which has become an important part of the cultural dialogue in France. His reflexion is filtered through his dramaturgical strategies which consist of subverting the founding mythologies of European culture: the Bible, the Myth of Faust, the rituals of the Catholic church and shifting their meaning to contemporary issues of racism and immigration. We learn that through these contemporary rituals of power, often ending in death, the author constructs a new urban mythology that represents the paradigm of the excluded of French society.;Key words: Cette vieille magie noire -- Bintou -- Ave Maria -- Big Shoot -- Blue-S-cat -- Misterioso-119 -- africanity -- Black -- francophone theatre -- ceremonies of power... |
