Deposited these days on the stage of Place Bell, the recreation of Starmania by Thomas Jolly is a black diamond that shines brightly. Forty-five years after its birth in the City of Lights, Luc Plamondon and Michel Berger’s prophetic masterpiece is experiencing, thanks to one of the most inspired directors of his generation, artistic director of the stunning opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, what could well be the most moving, timeless, coherent and visceral reinterpretation ever made. Since its start in 2023, the production has been seen in France, Switzerland and Belgium by a million spectators.
From the opening, when the protagonists of the story that we are about to be told gradually appear in an immense tower, human beings whose hours are numbered, we rediscover with great joy the immediately recognizable aesthetic that Jolly has been forging for a decade, notably by directing Shakespearean marathons aroundHenry VI and of Richard IIIIn Emmanuelle Favre’s angular scenography, in Nicolas Ghesquière’s sensual costumes, in Caroline Bitu’s iridescent makeup… we find everywhere proof of the director’s impeccable taste.
Thomas Dechandon’s lighting plays a crucial role in the fabulous dystopia that Jolly has orchestrated. Firstly because the effects created by the multiple projectors, often in synergy with Guillaume Cottet’s videos, compose striking tableaux, light sculptures that come out of the frame of the scene and take your breath away, but also because the light here has a pulsating nature, as if it were breathing, the manifestation of a living organism. There is no doubt that this lighting design, as beautiful as it is complex, as delicate as it is technical, will henceforth constitute a standard, an ideal to be achieved.
Giving birth to a unique alloy of gravity and fantasy, to a gothic aesthetic at the same time as futuristic, at once expressionist and spatial, realistic and virtual, all this without ever flirting with the gadget, without ever sinking into bluff, the creators take us in the blink of an eye from labyrinthine undergrounds to dizzying peaks, from the Underground Café all in chiaroscuro to the gleaming Naziland. In passing, the director does not hesitate to evoke the cinema of Lang and Murnau, but also Clockwork Orange Kubrick’s or Woodkid’s music videos.
Bold choice
From a dramaturgical point of view, Thomas Jolly made bold choices, first by giving a central place to the interventions of Roger Roger, the newsreader to whom he lent his voice. This narration, which evokes the voice generators of artificial intelligence, serves as a common thread in places where the work, especially in the second act, really needs it. The director also changed the order of the songs and resurrected the Guru Marabout, a character who had long since been discarded. This choice will certainly not be unanimous, but it has the advantage of giving Zéro Janvier an environmentalist, sensualist and slightly conspiratorial adversary, an opponent who broadens the range of social issues addressed by the show while allowing us to discover a real bombshell, Malaïka Lacy, who plays the role alternately with Simon Geoffroy.
Unless you’re sitting in the front rows, it’s not possible to fully appreciate the performers’ performances. Their vocal abilities, however, ignore distances. While David Latulippe (Zéro Janvier), William Cloutier (Johnny Rockfort), Gabrielle Lapointe (Cristal) and Miriam Baghdassarian (Sadia) offer us the most impressive notes of the evening, Maag (Stella Spotlight), Adrien Fruit (Ziggy) and Alex Montembault (Marie-Jeanne, alternating with Heidi Jutras) play delicately, with interpretations that highlight some of Victor le Masne’s most original arrangements (can’t wait for the album!).
In this three-hour show, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s choreographies inject irresistible doses of adrenaline. Some scenes, such as Child of pollution And Tonight we dance in Nazilandraise the crowd strongly. As a counterpoint, other moments testify to the greatest meticulousness, relying on a theatricality as simple as it is effective. This is the case for the final number: in what is certainly one of the most moving stage evocations of September 11, 2001, Marie-Jeanne, the sole survivor, sings The world is stone in a cloud of dust and burnt paper. This image is imprinted on us forever.