An aftertaste of compostthe first text by the young Anne-Virginie Bérubé, presents an exploration of the insidious nature of eating disorders: those of a brother who suddenly disappeared, without leaving a trace. In this closed session for two which opens the season in Premier Acte, it is, however, the pain of a sister, above all, which stands out.
This one, Éléonore (Béatrice Casgrain-Rodriguez), launches the play with a series of effective flashes which, in the direction of Nathalie Séguin, perfectly portrays the situation: the brother who left without explanation, the years that pass, the birthdays repeated, the incomprehension renewed.
When their chance meeting occurs in this once shared community garden – and where both now come less to plant seedlings than to bury memories. The first sentences exchanged, however, will already establish a strange feeling: something is there that they are not saying…
Five years have kept Christophe (Antoine Gagnon) in silence. At the age of 26, the older brother became a college literature teacher, the two characters slowly reconnect – without leaving us, however, with the feeling of a gap which is not just due to embarrassment. Imprecision leaves the motivations vague and the dynamics difficult to fully define, the writing struggling to bring us closer to the characters.
The pain that blinds
A point of clarification could lie in the discourse on generosity that the short one-hour play spins. There are invoked the Nawal ofFires and her tragic experience – which, even in front of loved ones, confined the woman to silence. Selfishness, the play risks. The same goes for this brother who should have spoken about his difficulties: why didn’t he say anything to his family who love him?
Beyond the hypothetical insult to Mouawad’s character, there is here above all an unfair treatment of the disorders that the play wishes to explore. What remains in mind, when the curtain falls, are above all the recriminations: the blinding suffering which, if it has short-circuited the work of exploration, could also suggest that selfishness is not exactly where it belongs. the text.
In the game, Antoine Gagnon finds a sensitive balance, but remains caught in the narrow space of this guilty brother. The scenic design nicely accompanies the major movements of the text: the sounds rumble and take over from the suppressed anger, the warm and intimate decoration of the decor gives everything we need to keep us attentive to the exchanges, which slide towards complicity quietly found. This will be done according to a youthful melody which rises to the surface: a reconciliation which it is difficult to accept completely, however, when it seems built on the back of the unsaid, of what is buried.
Everything happens as if it were a pain that had seized the gesture of writing. It is she who, knowingly or not, rises to the front of the stage and shouts – at the same time as she confuses the gesture, and prevents a real outstretched hand from being offered.