Article by Sophie Engel & Maëlle Partouche

Between Jewish and non-Jewish: Sophie Engel’s dialectic

Yet another breakup prompts Sophie to put on her mask and arm herself with a crossbow to go find the sea monster that has been haunting her since she entered adulthood and preventing her from blossoming as an emancipated Jewish woman. This monster is none other than the sum of her fears, her family heritage, and her inner contradictions: everything that, since childhood, has shaped the way she loves – sometimes in spite of herself. Among these legacies is a persistent injunction: to love “within the group”, to be in a relationship with a Jewish man. Slicing (Trancher), a one-woman show in which she plays the main character, is Sophie Engel’s first play. Both funny and cathartic, it questions the place of religion in romantic relationships.

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