A powerful one-woman show about cultural behaviours and repression, Amélie Nothomb’s play is captivating and profound.

A long monologue about the role of a Japanese woman opens the play, as Amélie (Layla Metssitane) sits at her dressing table and carefully paints her face white. She describes the way a Japanese woman must act, explaining that to sweat is worse than to die, and that she can never hope for any joy in life. She explains that not committing suicide is a brave act of protest for a Japanese woman.

This monologue immediately grabbed my attention, and had me alternately cringing and chuckling at her descriptions of the Japanese woman’s life of submissive obedience.

Amélie is a young Belgian woman who grew up in Japan. She returns to her adopted country hoping to integrate completely into Japanese culture, but when she is hired as a translator by the Yuminoto company, she realizes the extent of her manager’s inflexibility and gets a crash course in Japanese social codes.

Gradually, Amélie descends the hierarchy of the office and ends up cleaning toilets. Just when she thinks she has hit the bottom, she realizes that things can always get worse.

Layla Metssitane was a tour de force. She held the audience rapt with simple staging and a powerful story. Stupeur et tremblements (fear and trembling) is adapted from the 1999 novel, winner of the Grand Prix at the Academie Française. It is a tragic yet comic play exploring powerful themes of modern chauvinism and cultural restraints.

Amélie finished off the performance by once again sitting at her dressing table and washing off her Japanese identity as she removed the white face paint. Through razor-sharp wit, vivid imagery, and a nuanced performance, Stupeur et tremblements held my attention and left me with a lot to think about.

Stupeur et tremblements was presented by Theatre la Seizieme February 17–21. For more information, visit seizieme.ca.