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La Marseillaise
of the VAUCLUSE
MONDAY 15 JULY 2002
N° 17387
FESTIVALS
AVIGNON/OFF
"GROWN-UPS ARE VERY STRANGE...".
Two shows that seem to have nothing to do with each other: one is a raging revolt, the other is the resurrection of a funny little man who can't find the answers to the essential questions.
Two shows that fan the flames of our reflections on the false values imposed by a triumphant capitalism, blind to feelings, the generator of absurd and anaesthetic needs.
Between 1943 and 2000, the cancer spread. The utopian hopes of a Saint Exupéry caught up in the turmoil of war (which was to be his undoing) collide and dissolve in the blood-red pessimism of the aptly named David Noir.
The Righteous-Story
The stage is an unbelievable mess, with a toilet seat at its centre. As the show progresses, a screen displays pornographic photos in keeping with the comments made by a troupe of crazy clowns, driven by a hatred drawn from the depths of their bowels. David Noir sings about the unbearable: the idiotic games played on television that has lost its mind, the walled-in speeches of politicians, the sickening syrup of certain pop songs whose lyrics he bitterly twists, the uncontrolled invasion of pornography where everyone tries to soothe their frustrations. There's a lot of sex in this widespread frustration. Les Justes calls a spade a spade, and, as if that weren't enough, shows what the indecency of our society suggests and what we generally only read in the watermark of our unconfessed wounds. The post-68 generation takes a beating, as does the image of the father who, from birth, violates his son with his indestructible conception of virility. David Noir does not forgive the bravos that greeted, in earlier times, the words of a Pétain acclaimed by the French people. He scratches at the gaps in our guilty conscience: "enough of these safe, certainly not nice, values".. Today, to lull the people to sleep, we throw them the shameful "Loft Story", a new version of the circus games, where we demand even more blood and even more sex. To attend a performance of Les Justes is to accept a cleansing of the ears and eyes, but above all of our numb brains. And so much the worse if David Noir's message gets bogged down in the stereotypes of gay culture: transvestites and high heels, Mylène Farmer and mannered behaviour (another form of imprisonment). His dry, brutal, smelly poetry could open up clearer horizons in a society where life would be good. Not in shameful comfort while they exterminate elsewhere, but in the sincerity of their relationships with others. A fine struggle.
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