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As part of the centenary of René Depestre’s birth, the company Ton Île is presenting a theatrical adaptation of his novel at the 2026 Avignon Festival, performed solo by Williamson Belfort.
The show Hadriana in All My Dreams, adapted from the novel of the same name by René Depestre, will be presented from July 4 to 25, 2026, at 8:00 PM at the Comédie Saint Roch, Novotel Avignon Centre, 20 Boulevard Saint Roch. The production is brought to life by the company Ton Île as a tribute to the author, born in 1926 in Jacmel: « René Depestre — 100 years of fire, dreams, and freedom ».
Designed in the style of audience theater, the play is performed, adapted, and directed by Williamson Belfort, actor, storyteller, and artistic director of Ton Île. The show, which lasts sixty minutes, draws on Haitian and Caribbean oral traditions, using voice, body, rhythms, and silences in direct connection with the audience. It is aimed at viewers aged 16 and up and is performed in French, with a distinct Caribbean oral style.
The story takes as its starting point a shocking event: in Jacmel, on her wedding day, Hadriana Siloé collapses and dies in front of the entire town. Her funeral takes on a carnival-like atmosphere. Then, mysteriously, she reappears. Around this enigma, stories circulate — memories, rumors, fantasies, fears. The performance doesn’t investigate to solve the mystery; it inhabits its uncertainty, where desire, religion, voodoo, eroticism, and popular memory intertwine.
The staging opts for a minimalist scenography: a veil, a mask, singing, body rhythm, and silence accompany the words without ever illustrating them. The form opens with ritual calls — Krik-Krak, Tim tim bwa sèch — which establish a listening pact between the stage and the audience. The audience is not called to act, but to be an active presence, essential to the emergence of the story.
Zombification as a political question
The company’s press kit identifies several angles of interpretation. Zombification is approached there as a metaphor for Haitian history, inherited from slavery and the dispossession of bodies: as a figure of ultimate alienation, the zombie condenses the erasure of the individual and becomes a question that is political, poetic, and deeply human. Hadriana herself, celebrated and then brutally rejected by her community, embodies a body that unsettles because it refuses assignment, control, and silence, revealing the fragility of the norms that shape women’s desire and freedom.
A centenarian author with multiple awards
Born in Jacmel, René Depestre is a poet, novelist, and essayist, a major figure in Francophone and Caribbean literature. His work, marked by exile and political engagement, constantly engages with history and struggles for freedom. In 1982, he received the Goncourt Prize for Short Stories for Alléluia pour une femme-jardin. In 1988, Hadriana in All My Dreams was awarded the Renaudot Prize, then the Grand Prize for a Novel from the Société des Gens de Lettres, the Novel Prize from the Royal Academy of French Language and Literature of Belgium, and the Antigone Prize from the City of Montpellier. In 2025, on the eve of his centenary, he was awarded the Roger Caillois Prize for his entire body of work.
A Well-Rehearsed Show
Before Avignon, the production was presented notably at the 2026 Geneva Book Fair, at the Auditorium of the Paris City Hall, at the Théâtre du Versant in Biarritz, at the Contrepoint Café-Théâtre in Agen, and at the Montpellier Media Library. According to the company, these stops confirmed the strength of the stage setup and its ability to adapt to various settings. The licensing price starts at 1,400 euros.
