MALGRÉ LES MURS / Inside Outside
Creation 2026
Through text, music and images, Malgré les Murs (Despite the Walls) creates a dialogue between the voices of prisoners around the world and those on the outside. Inspired by the book Inside Outside — Dire la prison by Bertrand Gaudillère and Clara Grisot of the Prison Insider NGO, the show explores the correspondence between men and women deprived of their freedom and a photographer who sends them his images. On stage, a singer-narrator, a trio of musicians and a choir weave together a concert-narrative that combines readings, songs, sounds and photographic projections. The words emerge in their original languages — French, Italian and English — interspersed with silences, rhythms and melodies. The music, sometimes restrained, sometimes exuberant, becomes breath, tension, resonance. The projected images open up breaches in reality, inviting the audience to cross, for a moment, the wall that separates the inside from the outside.
Malgré les Murs does not tell the story of prison: it evokes its resonances, its echoes, its (in)humanities, through a political and poetic journey through the condition of confinement.Musically, this adaptation extends Polymorphie’s previous work, whose album ‘Cellule’ already addressed the issue of incarceration. But unlike previous creations designed for musical stages, this new work naturally finds its place in the theatre, carried by Pauline Laidet’s staging.
Playlist / Sound references for the project
MALGRÉ LES MURS / Inside Outside
Creation 2026
Through text, music and images, Malgré les Murs (Despite the Walls) creates a dialogue between the voices of prisoners around the world and those on the outside. Inspired by the book Inside Outside — Dire la prison by Bertrand Gaudillère and Clara Grisot of the Prison Insider NGO, the show explores the correspondence between men and women deprived of their freedom and a photographer who sends them his images. On stage, a singer-narrator, a trio of musicians and a choir weave together a concert-narrative that combines readings, songs, sounds and photographic projections. The words emerge in their original languages — French, Italian and English — interspersed with silences, rhythms and melodies. The music, sometimes restrained, sometimes exuberant, becomes breath, tension, resonance. The projected images open up breaches in reality, inviting the audience to cross, for a moment, the wall that separates the inside from the outside.
Malgré les Murs does not tell the story of prison: it evokes its resonances, its echoes, its (in)humanities, through a political and poetic journey through the condition of confinement.Musically, this adaptation extends Polymorphie’s previous work, whose album ‘Cellule’ already addressed the issue of incarceration. But unlike previous creations designed for musical stages, this new work naturally finds its place in the theatre, carried by Pauline Laidet’s staging.
Line Up
DESIGN & COMPOSITION: ROMAIN DUGELAY
WRITING ASSISTANCE AND DIRECTION: PAULINE LAIDET
SET DESIGN: QUENTIN LUGNIER
LIGHTING: GABRIELLE MARILLIER
SOUND: LUCAS GARNIER
VIDEO: CASTING IN PROGRESS
PHOTOGRAPHY: BERTRAND GAUDILLÈRE
VOCALS & NARRATION: MARINE PELLEGRINI
GUITAR & BARITONE GUITAR: DAMIEN CLUZEL
DRUMS & PERCUSSION: LÉO DUMONT
SAXOPHONES & KEYBOARDS: ROMAIN DUGELAY
2 SOPRANOS, 2 ALTOS, 2 TENORS, 1 BARITONE, 1 BASS: CHOEUR SYLLEPSE