Will I be able to convey the magnitude of what I experienced, the complexity of what I felt, the richness of what I heard, the beauty of what I saw? These are the questions that tormented your humble servant on leaving the Prospero theater, just after attending The One Dollar Storythe fifth collaboration between playwright Fabrice Melquiot and director Roland Auzet, a show in which actress Sophie Desmarais shines with a thousand lights.
“In a book, let’s say my life is one, the only truly autobiographical part is not the memories that we collect, the anecdotes or the thoughts. But thunderstorms and tempests. The best way to talk about yourself is to write a storm. This storm, which threatens to break out at any moment, is Jodie Casterman, the one who embarks before our eyes on a genealogical journey, an adventure of the self, a quest for meaning, justice and identity that will lead from Oregon to Colorado. Its journey is still and yet eventful, it is a road trip classic and nevertheless very singular, a monologue which gives pride of place to the story, in particular to the mystery surrounding the famous dollar bill, but without ever concealing the body.
As soon as she sets foot on stage, loaded with a heavy backpack, Sophie Desmarais fascinates, demonstrates a physical commitment and a breathtaking mental availability. She is Jodie, the one who has been abandoned and betrayed, a lucid woman, and therefore torn between destruction and resilience, rancor and joie de vivre, but also between acting and dog walking. . Desmarais also impresses by lending life, body and voice to several secondary characters, a family album in the center of which appears Suzanne, Jodie’s mother, the very one who would have inspired a song by Leonard Cohen, mythical figure who hovers above of the whole performance.
To tell the truth, the actress benefits from an extraordinary partner on which to rely: the space imagined by Cédric Delorme-Bouchard (scenography and lighting) and Pierre Laniel (video). On this huge blank canvas, in this large white cube where there is only a table, a few chairs and a refrigerator with glass doors, we show, in a game of opening and framing, reflection and duplication, both the interior and the exterior, the striking vastness of the American territory and the prodigious mental disorder of the heroine. Let’s add that one of Sophie El Assaad’s creations, a piece of clothing about which nothing can be said, is in itself worth the detour.
Travel in time and space, in the soul and in the heart of a woman to whom one attaches as to a precious friend, The One Dollar Story constitutes an exceptional spectacle, one of those who are part of us for a long time. Knowing that it will be presented in France in 2023 should fill us with pride.