Mémoires d’un Balai is a play in 10 acts written by Syto Cavé, staged by Hervé Denis and presented in 1972 at Columbia University, at the Festival of the Nations at the Sorbonne (Paris, France and in 1973 at the Cultural Festival of Fort-de-France, Martinique. The central theme of this play is the carnival, experienced not as a celebration but as an itch, a barrier and a questioning. What hides behind the masks? Other masks?

A King, a Queen, their subjects: an ambulatory realm which affirms and exhausts itself, a dream… a dream reeking of the smell of garbage bins.

There is also this persistent grime which resists all attempts from the sweeper’s broom… Port-au-Prince: a place rustling with interferences… Throughout the play the atmosphere is surreal.

The stage: an alley in a slum of Port-au-Prince where a group of unemployed people meet every day to discuss their situation. A sweeper observes them and comments on their conversation. He is interrupted by Vierge who tells him the story of an unfortunate star.

The group continues their debate until a Tonton Macoute walks in and summons them to participate in a nearby carnival. He chooses a King and distributes clothing to be worn at the carnival. The sweeper keeps commenting on the scene and Vierge starts telling him the story of a butterfly singed by a lamp.

The carnival starts: music, dance. The King addresses the crowd as well as his subjects and tells them how the carnival will help them let off steam from their frustrations, however he is mindful of the Tonton Macoute watching him.

The sweeper is increasingly feeling powerless with his broom in front of the Tonton Macoute and tries to retell, from his own perspective, the story of the kingdom.

The King orders the end of the carnival: “Let’s take off our masks!”

A meat patty peddler arrives and the Tonton Macoute offers food to everybody. But when the patty peddler demands to be paid, he pulls out his gun and everyone flees, except the Queen who is taken as hostage by the Macoute.

While the Queen is forced to endure the advances of the Tonton Macoute, the King takes out the suppressed anger he cannot let out on the Tonton Macoute on his subjects.

The sweeper is really stressed at this point: he sees his phantasmagorical world (his imaginary relationship with Vierge) collapse in front of reality: he is attacked and kicked by two of the girls of the group who refuse the flowers he gave them which they crush under their feet.