Danton’s Death

Steve is a 25-year-old black man from a poor Parisian suburb who decides to take a new direction in life. He’s used to seeing violence and crime around him – and he hasn’t always been a model citizen himself. But now he’s training to be an actor at the Cours Simon drama school in Paris. It all goes well at first – he learns a lot and enjoys acting – but halfway through his third year, he grows increasingly depressed as he starts to become aware of the way people see him and the extent to which that’s determined by the color of his skin. He no longer feels at home in his old world; he doesn’t even talk about his acting there because he’s scared they’ll think he’s arrogant. And in the theater, all he gets offered are “black” roles. The title is a reference to the eponymous play by Georg Büchner, about the ideological conflict between Danton and Robespierre, two leaders of the French Revolution. Steve is really hoping to perform a scene from this play.