How is the way we see informed by what we hear? In Wajdi Mouawad’s play Incendies (2003), which depicts but never names the Lebanese civil war, a sniper sings along to Supertramp’s “The Logical Song,” using his machine gun as a mock microphone. His performance culminates with the shooting of a photographer. He then interviews himself in broken English about his aesthetic and moral values. Taking its critical cues from the Roland Barthes essay "Le Grain de la voix," my presentation considers the complex of aural and visual elements that key Nihad's singing performance through an ambivalent combination of black humor, fear, and empathy. The questions this scene eventually answers in the denouement of Incendies leads us to consider the corporeal nature of how we think about our national and familial origins.
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