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Chronic'art - Scenes/art - Boards
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THE PURITANTS
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A long conference table, carafes of water, two microphones: everything announces a soporific conference. Nine people in black put on their briefcases and take their seats. A few minutes later, all these people will drop their panties and touch each other without the slightest embarrassment. Masturbation, fellatio, sodomy, we will be entitled to an exhaustive or almost exhaustive catalogue of sexual urges and fantasies, from the most classic to the most fanciful. The "thing" is declined according to a surrealist and musical primer. Michel Sardou, Sylvie Vartan, Sacha Distel are invoked, and this slightly old-fashioned repertoire is given new erotic accents. I want to love you or What makes blondes cry are not as naive as we thought, nor are they as On the North Bridge or At the clear fountain.
By parodying X-rated films, denouncing artistic prostitution, dealing with abusive parents, castrating mothers, voyeuristic shrinks and hypocritical cults, David Noir and his band (no pun intended) shatter the masks of many institutions. By mixing extreme cruelty and humour, they vigorously expose our obsessions. Rape and incest are recurring themes. Hitting, cumming, killing, eating, defecating, licking, torturing are human. By emptying a few bottles of wine and dancing, these ten unbridled puritans show this without moderation.
The audience is violently taken to task, looked at, challenged, and provoked without mercy. Some words, cruder than crude, hit their target, provoking a physical reaction: spasms of laughter erupt, betraying the surprise of being flushed out into one's intimate folds. David Noir's text hits the nail on the head: flesh and organs are moved, the mind wanders, certain memories resurface. But this experience would lack novelty if it were reduced to a simple provocation. But it is childhood that awakens, under the blows of this orgy: the discovery of the body, curiosity, solitude and fear.
By having his actors read certain obscene and zany scenes (some of which would not be out of place in Copi or Llamas), by adopting a saving discrepancy, by straddling the pitfalls of pathos and vulgarity, David Noir brings out the emotion. His dark, torn presence orchestrates this pornographic opera with the energy of one who knows what violence means. Finally, let us salute his talent as a poet, who, to our great joy, makes "pram" rhyme with "hand job".
