In his early novel ‘Confessions of a Mask’, Mishima takes us on an intimate journey of self-discovery triggered by his sexual awakening, against the backdrop of the final days of a losing war. He discovers his forbidden desire for men and a dark fascination with death and violence: an inner world he conceals under a self-conscious public mask.
Following the paths of Mishima’s story, Personne is a quest for authenticity through narration and play. Etymologically, the word ‘personne’ refers to the actor’s mask. It means an ‘individual of the human species, without distinction of sex. This individual defined by his awareness of existing, as a biological, moral and social being’*. In French, ‘personne’ also means ‘no-one’.
*(Theodore Jouffroy, Mélanges…
