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"Les Justes-Story' banned from the stage by Pierre Cardin
David Noir and his troupe's new creation "Les Puritains" was cancelled at the Espace Pierre Cardin (Paris-8th) a week after its premiere. Why this "censorship-prise", to use the pun used by this director to announce the news to the media?
Updated on Wednesday 27 June 2001
Friday 15 June, 8.30 pm. A late message arrives in the mailboxes of several Parisian newsrooms. Entitled "Cardin Censor", it opens with a play on words written in black capitals: "Censorship-prise". In a few lines, the director David Noir announces Pierre Cardin's decision to withdraw the latest creation of the 'Puritans' troupe from the bill of his new venue.
The deprogramming of a play a week after its premiere, this is information that should hardly have gone unnoticed in the French cultural landscape. And yet, despite a few articles appearing here and there, including an interview with David Noir by Fabienne Arvers in Les InrockuptiblesThis event did not provoke much reaction in the small world of Parisian theatre critics. Let's take a look at the facts. A few months ago, Pierre Cardin decided to transform one of the rooms of his Espace, on Avenue Gabriel in the 8th arrondissement, into a place entirely dedicated to young contemporary creation. He named it "Le Petit Espace Pierre Cardin" and entrusted the artistic direction to Nicolas Laugero, who was already press officer for the shows staged at the Espace. The latter then called on the author, director and actor David Noir to put on the first show intended to inaugurate the space. He knows the work of this company as he was in charge of press relations for their previous creation at the Lavoir Moderne Parisien, "Les Puritains".
Everything goes smoothly during the rehearsals for the play. But an incident occurred on the evening of the premiere, Tuesday 5 June. Visibly shocked by some of the scenes in David Noir's show, Pierre Cardin left the theatre after twenty-five minutes of performance. Then, a week later, the decision fell like a knife for the troupe: the definitive withdrawal of "Justes-Story" from the Petit Espace Pierre Cardin's bill, i.e. the pure and simple deprogramming of the 14 performances planned until June 29. A last chance meeting was organised between Pierre Cardin and David Noir. But between the two, the misunderstanding is total, the exchanges of words rather violent and the rupture definitively consummated, according to the echoes reported by each party.
On the side of the Espace Pierre Cardin, Nicolas Laugero, while affirming his personal desire to continue to defend David Noir's work at all costs, can only endorse the unquestionable decision taken by the owner."Some scenes in the play "Les Justes-Story" explicitly refer to acts of paedophilia and incest. In Pierre Cardin's eyes, this is totally incompatible with his brand image around the world. As an ambassador for peace at UNESCO, he cannot allow himself to be seen as condoning such behaviour. When it was pointed out to him that Pierre Cardin could have realised this much earlier, well before the premiere, Nicolas Laugero invoked the very busy schedule of this theatre director with multiple functions, which hardly allowed him to attend the rehearsals of the company before the evening of the premiere.
For David Noir and his company 'Les Puritains', the mood is one of anger and a deep sense of revolt. "Pierre Cardin's attitude towards us is totally incomprehensible. Why did he wait a week to announce the deprogramming of the show? Has he been pressured in the meantime by his entourage to ban our play? The director says he has never hidden the deeply provocative nature of his new creation from Pierre Cardin. "On the few occasions I was able to meet him, I showed him photos of my previous show, 'The Puritans', and excerpts from the texts. He could then get a clear idea of the extreme dimension of my work. For me, there was never any deception.
The next step for the director? To obtain damages from the Espace Pierre Cardin for abusive breach of contract, but above all to quickly find a new theatre to host his company."For, he said, To play our show in another venue would be the best response to Pierre Cardin's unacceptable attitude. What does he think of the arguments used by the latter to ban the play? "Showing paedophile or incestuous acts on stage is in no way an endorsement of such practices. We must not confuse words and deeds, theatrical representation and the reality of the facts. And he adds: "It is not a question of gratuitous provocation for me. On the contrary, "Les Justes-Story" is in line with my previous show "Les Puritains" and in the more general framework of a reflection on the nature of theatrical representation. Like the jesters of the Middle Ages, I place myself in the register of the grotesque, the burlesque, which sometimes tips over into the tragic. I seek to hold up to the audience a distorting mirror in which the impulses, the repressed desires, all those small and great horrors that are in each of us, appear magnified and exaggerated. David Noir's objective? To provoke a reaction from the public: "If it could bring the audience out of the numbness, the lethargy that most often overcomes them in front of a theatre stage, my work would not have been in vain. Any reaction, even the most violent and radical, is interesting.
Pierre Cardin's reaction, paradoxically, exceeded David Noir's expectations. But perhaps this is also one of the downsides of being a jester: to be rejected as soon as you stop entertaining the Prince and his court?
