The Terrace

N°77

Theatre

The Puritans

At the Lavoir Moderne, David Noir and his Compagnie La Vie est Courte polish the brains of those mired in their prejudices

Eight men, one woman. They are sitting opposite us. Black suits, ties. Stiff, straight. Them, The Puritanswith a disconcerting severity, stare at the "those who risked 90 francs. Barely out of childhood, the author, director and actor David Noir swaps his toys for our impulses and repulsions. He grabs them, has fun with them, manipulates them. Plays with them. He mistreats them as a child would break someone else's toys. At their work table, the nine speakers - readers of Puritans violate all the conventions of representation. Manuscript in hand, they decipher the text of an imaginary play, the one we could have seen. In between smoking, wine and chips, The Puritans share what they have: food and drink. In bulk. Under disco lights, they set up some characters. Bertha, Betty, Jean, Adrien. To the tune of My little birdIn the same way that Sylvie Vartan bawls, they drop their trousers, touch each other, touch each other, then simulate a gang rape, an incest, a murder, a beating. The worst is yet to come.

Stage crime

David Noir carried the devastating provocations of his Puritans before the French institution discovered the world of Sarah Kane. Even Thomas Ostermeier's clever, hard-hitting theatre next door looks like a Sound of Music sung by the choirboys of Passy. His universe owes nothing to anyone. Only to the barely concealed monsters that we are. Us, him, his parents, his friends. His theatre figures and exhibits each of the excesses of which our fantasies are capable. It cuts our real tendencies to degenerate forms of voyeurism to the bone. Served by ten prodigies of a new anti-theatre, the Puritans They disinhibit, mock, strike down and trample one by one the certainties piled up in childhood, erected as protective walls against our own tendencies. Walls nowadays dressed up, whether we like it or not, as "puritanism". Obviously, all this ends badly. Very badly. Before resorting, with a biting sense of humour, to the worst of the "happy endings" and disappearing into the smoke of cigarettes and the notes of "Qu'est-ce qui fait pleurer les blondes", David Noir and his actors give those who have paid to see it their money's worth. More than a work, it is a manifesto. The Puritans are an offence to our consciences, to our comforts. An ignoble or magnificent crime, salvific and irremissible.

PIERRE NOTTE