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BOYS ?#22
THEATRE
The Puritans: the naked truth!
The Puritans are a revolution that sweeps across the boards of the Lavoir Moderne Parisien. Sexuality is an essential part of life, but it is also a delicate subject. David Noir has tackled it head on, not shying away from the difficulty. His rhythmic and poetic language frees itself from archaic shackles to express a reality freed from its share of hypocrisy and taboos, with a very particular way of making his text resonate, sometimes recalling the great classical tirades, sometimes extracts of rap or strong and desperate rock. It is a world still largely in the realm of the hidden, the unspoken and the repressed that the author lays bare, using the infinite resources of words to describe these evils from childhood.
In the process, he breaks the rigid and castrating moulds of education and classical theatre to express what remains confined to the depths of the human being. The importance given to the form is evident and translates the innovative force of this work. The staging, in symbiosis with the text, aims to show without voyeurism, to bear witness without judging and above all to say and think differently. Around the author, eight actors interpret this powerful text with remarkable art and conviction. Pierre Viguié, Philippe Savoir, Miguel-Ange Sarmiento, Stéphane Desvignes, Sonia Codhant, Jean-François Rey, Jacques Meystre and Jean-Hugues Laleu bring to life this original and human theatre that will leave no one indifferent.
Philippe Escalier
Lavoir Moderne Parisien, 15 rue Léon 75018 Paris - Wednesday, Thursday and Friday - at 9pm from 21 June - 01 42 52 09 14
David Noir: We are all Puritans!
This dark-haired 36-year-old has written a scathing and disturbing play. Initially created in anonymity, "Les Puritains" has aroused great interest, allowing them to take over the stage of the Lavoir Moderne Parisien. And it's a safe bet that we haven't heard the last of them.
Why did you write 'The Puritans'?
What excites me is to go in search of myself. I want to live fully and there is no life without encounters and no encounters without self-knowledge. I wanted to write in order to accumulate sensations and materials. To get out of this overused literature that forgets the form, which is so essential as a transmitter of sensations.
Your show is quite violent!
Yes, but isn't the contact with people the same? Meeting a stranger is always a bit violent. Sometimes you need something that shocks to catch the attention and to challenge the viewer.
It has been said here and there that he was immodest?
No, it's the theatre that has misplaced modesty. You always have to do culture, institutional culture, even if you say horrible things. It's a state of affairs that I want to change. Personally, I'm more attracted to the rock scene, which is livelier and more inventive. I'd hate to sit back and spread the word! I don't want to be politically correct, nor do I want my speech to be dissociated from what I do. Anyway, I don't do exhibition when I talk about my intimacy, but I practice it fully when I act, The actor is a born exhibitionist, that's how I like to use it. "The Puritans" cultivates this form where actors show themselves without pretense. It is important to be able to reflect and work on oneself, to live and assume all one's contradictions. This is an important condition if we want to create something other than the fictional narratives that the performing arts still often serve up.
Are you the opposite of a romantic?
To be romantic is to deny the obvious. We have lived through a century of psychoanalysis; what benefit has it brought us? We have remained in the same patterns of thinking and writing. Why do stars always have to be strong? Why are people so often driven to become their own executioners by underestimating or reproducing the abuse that has sometimes been perpetrated on them? Having said that, I want to have a hook to "hook" people. Going to meet a stranger is always a bit rude, a bit destabilising, but this "violence" is profitable!
Is this one of the messages of your production?
The important thing is that the actors integrate the audience. If in the play we are lined up in front of the audience, it is not only to break with what is usual, it is also to establish a link with the audience. I thought of this production as a game in which the actor is free. For me, the stage is the space of freedom par excellence.
