What is the intention behind these Common Places?
The initial desire was to work by articulating the notion of the unresolved and that of truth. When something eludes us. When no one can establish an objective truth for everyone. When, for example, we don't have the facts to attest to a certain truth. In the play, we're talking about a news item, but it could be a parable for much broader things like the existence of God, the birth of the universe. When we reach a conceptual threshold beyond which we can't conceive of truth, we clearly feel that it becomes a notion that consumes us, that torments us, and that organizes the differences that polarize society.
You also place the audience in a position contrary to conventions
Yes, it's also about the unresolved in the performance. And about reversing the performance structure. That is to say, we witness a performance from backstage. By fictionalizing this idea, four spaces emerged, forming an allegorical backstage landscape: the basement of a police station, the dressing rooms of a television show, and a painting restoration workshop. Spaces hidden before we were even called upon to represent them.
Did the subject dictate the form? Or the other way around?
It's a mixture of both. I first assemble the cast. I write for the actors and actresses. And also for a space. The set designer conceives of a space that evolves as the fiction unfolds. The question of truth, of the unresolved, generated this desire to create a large wall that would obscure what we are supposed to see, and windows. This led us to reflect on the entire history of art, which is evoked in a somewhat farcical scene at the beginning. With this question of painting experienced as a window representing reality on a flat surface, and the wall with abstract art that includes the viewer within the space of the canvas. There is always a connection between background and form in all the reflections we have undertaken. It wasn't just about telling a story, but about always linking it to the way in which that story would be represented.
Is the thriller just a pretext?
The questions that interest me are not so much those of the police procedural, about whether the perpetrators are guilty or not. It's more about subjects revolving around truth, the representation of violence, stereotypes. How the scene is a device of assignment. The thriller is a genre that doesn't look like much. But by playing on our fear, by bringing into play the monstrous figures of moral questions, I find it to be a beautiful medium for these theoretical questions. It's a gateway to these questions for people who might be more interested in the plot.
What does it mean to you to be named guest artist at Le Parvis?
Frédéric Esquerré suggested that I be a recurring theme throughout the season. This allows me to have different appearances throughout the season. In December, we toured with Grande Surface in small venues with a very minimalist setup. A microphone stand, and I read for 45 minutes a text recounting my discovery of the album L'école du micro d'argent by the group IAM in a supermarket. It was a revelation of an aesthetic power and a desire for creation that sparked a writing process within me. We then presented a full-length piece on the stage of Le Parvis. And I'm coming back in March for another show.
Frédéric Esquerré suggested that I be a recurring theme throughout the season.
What are you preparing for next March?
It's a play I wrote that will be directed by Sébastien Bournac. A comedy that the director likes to describe as a thwarted musical. It's going to be very much like an introspective and minimalist musical. We're going to try to tell the story of the difficulty of creating when you encounter a personal ordeal in your life. The story of a composer who is given the task of writing the soundtrack for a musical film and who, just as he begins to create, loses his mother. He, who thought he had never truly loved his mother, will discover a world that comes to him through the eyes of his dead mother. And that changes everything. And it reorganizes everything around him. We're exploring this relationship to vertigo through the musical genre with a very well-written script and songs that belong more to the pop world. So it's a hybrid piece that will be really interesting to see. I've seen some photos of the rehearsals and the team that brought the director together. There's a real sense of risk-taking, a genuine experiment in how stories are told today. The show will premiere on March 11th at Le Parvis, and I'm very curious to see how it goes.
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