Étienne Lepage’s new text gives birth to new, rather entertaining, unfiltered characters that risk provoking raised eyebrows… and hilarity. A play directed by his accomplice Catherine Vidal constructed from a series of tragicomic monologues with varying effectiveness.
To relay all these (so-called) truths which are not always good to say, the ten characters of Too Human are dressed in clown outfits and all wear red noses. An excellent flash, since it is well known that a clown can say just about anything!
This is how Too Human opens with a monologue from a father (a sinister Luc Bourgeois), who explains to his son the importance of “paying” for what you need… before trying to sell him his used car (by taking back the capital from his education savings plan).
No, life doesn’t give us any gifts, so we might as well get used to it right away. With his father.
The characters follow one another, addressing flatly everyday subjects (dreamed or nightmared!) with the same disconcerting frankness that reveals all their flaws. Because they are greedy, liars, manipulators, hypocrites, vain and superficial, these humans. And they are not afraid to say out loud everything they think. At the risk of being politically incorrect.
As proof, this man (hilarious Didier Lucien), who tells us about his chance encounter with a person with an unattractive physique, also endowed with a small unpleasant voice. A “meteorite”, he tells us, and again a “booger”, in short, a hideous being, who is difficult to look at in the face. “No one warned me!”, he exclaims, dejected, before wondering if he should kill himself… or kill this strange human!
PHOTO FRÉDÉRIQUE MÉNARD-AUBIN, PROVIDED BY LE QUAT’SOUS
Didier Lucien offers us one of the best moments of Too Human with this character troubled by the presence of a hideous being.
Of course, one could argue that these are human reactions… normal. Except that most people stifle these subterranean thoughts – if they arise. Not Étienne Lepage’s characters, who verbalize them and add another layer. But there you have it, by dint of expressing these thoughts under the pretext that they are “human”, we end up losing a part of our humanity.
While some monologues fall flat – like this conversation about what is a priority or not, or this anti-capitalist, anti-François Legault plea – others are rich in interpretation.
This is the case of this fan (excellent Ève Pressault), who addresses one of her idols – we don’t know exactly what she does, but it doesn’t matter – by telling him how much she admires his work. “It’s perfect,” she tells him. “Someone has to tell you that,” she insists. “Someone should walk next to you playing the trumpet all the time!” she adds. An ode that she pushes to the point of delirium.
Catherine Vidal’s staging is effective. In addition to the clown costumes (by the way), she brings in peripheral characters at certain key moments in order to avoid the stupid chaining of monologues. On the other hand, the absence of decor and landmarks forces the viewer to fill in the gaps in certain more nebulous stories.
Renaud Lacelle-Bourdon ends these stories – which are not linked to each other – in a final skid, his character spraining an ankle during a walk with friends (in the forest?). This execrable and angry being will never stop insulting his companions, before trying to hold them back, by making them believe in his friendship. All the hypocrisy of Étienne Lepage’s characters is there.
We won’t review each of the monologues, but let’s say that they are uneven, both in content and delivery.
In the end, it is the character of Mireille Métellus (astonishing), who will be the conscience of All too human – despite her equally delusional remarks. “We need others,” she said in essence. “Everything I have, I owe to others…” Those who are not inhabited by this feeling must go down the drain. They will die. Well yes, there is not room here below for everyone anyway.
Brief, Too Human is a close-up of the man and his fiancée in all their contradictions and their basest instincts. With all their ugliness… and a little of their beauty.
Check out the show page
Too Human
By Étienne Lepage. Directed by Catherine Vidal. With 10 actors including: Luc Bourgeois, Didier Lucien, Ève Pressault and Renaud Lacelle-Bourdon.
At the Quat’Sous TheaterUntil October 5