“It’s absolutely not a trivial decision,” says Christian Bégin from the outset about his return to humor, a genre he has not ventured in for 25 years. This solo show, The 8 deadly sins, which will have its Montreal premiere at the Outremont theater on October 19, the 59-year-old artist considers it a test. “I want to validate things, he admits. I want to check if I have reached my planned obsolescence. I wonder if I am still capable of meeting such a challenge. If I am in tune with the world I live in. What I have to say, the reflections that cross me, are they relevant, can they find an echo among people who belong to all generations? »
Although his last solo show, I’ve Got a Crush on You or J’ai une orangeade sur toi, dates back a quarter of a century, the actor-host seems to have lost none of his enthusiasm for the humorous genre: “It’s a form that I have always really liked. I find with great happiness the direct address to the public. It’s a type of conversation that has nothing to do with other performing arts. You receive an immediate response. You have the right time right away. At the dawn of my sixties, I wanted to reconnect with that, it’s the gift I wanted to give myself. »
Then, in the same breath, he adds: “It’s a poisoned gift, too, in a way. Because I go on stage with much less carelessness than when I was 30, being much less rebellious. I feel that I have a capital of sympathy, but there are still high expectations of me. It’s a serious gesture to stand alone on a stage, it takes courage and I admit that I sometimes have a ball of anxiety in my stomach. That said, because humor is a weapon of massive subversion, a mirror as distorting as it is revealing, I think I’d be crazy to miss it. »
For this show co-written with René Brisebois, who notably collaborated with Pierre Brassard and Patrick Huard, and directed by Chantal Lamarre, who held this position for Jean-Marc Parent and Alex Perron, Bégin chose to proceed with a period of much shorter run-in than most comedians allow themselves. “I only have about ten representations in the body,” he explains. I didn’t want to do more. I tested the material in front of audiences of different ages, in cities large and small, and all reacted well. I felt that was enough. »
Christian Bégin admits that his unorthodox way of working sometimes disconcerts the members of his team: “Don’t get me wrong, I know how to question myself, my text is constantly changing, I rewrite every day, but I don’t feel, like others, the need to run the show for a year, quite simply because it does not respond to a mathematical mechanism of laughter. It’s not a succession of themes, it’s the same theme that unfolds over 90 minutes. »
Right to speak
Exactly, what is this theme? “The starting premise, explains Bégin, is that I am a white, heterosexual, cisgender and privileged fifty-something. So the embodiment of what, according to a certain movement, should be silent. I understand where this thought is coming from. Myself, there are several white men I wouldn’t mind muzzling. However, if they continue to speak, I do not see why I should be silent. While we are going through an era of freedom of speech, we are not going to start to prioritize, to decide who has and who does not have the right to speak out. I feel neither the scapegoat of anyone nor the standard bearer of anything: I speak in my own name. »
I am full of self-mockery. That’s what saved me in life. Everyone should use it. It is essential.
Although it addresses topics that are in tune with the times, such as the notion of consent and inclusive writing, Bégin assures that it is not a show about current events. “It’s a personal development, he explains, an inventory, a settling of accounts with myself. I wonder if I still have the puck on the paddle. Despite my status, according to which I should tick all the boxes of happiness, the fact remains that it is often complicated to be me. You have no idea how constantly it spins in my head. While many imagine that I have an ideal life, I just try to survive. After 13 years of therapy twice a week, I live more easily with the man that I am, but I know that nothing is definitely won. »
Christian Bégin believes that all of society is feeling discomfort at the moment: “I don’t think it’s unique to people in their fifties to be overwhelmed by the times. We are all feeling unwell right now. Because the speed of the changes to which we are subjected prevents us from metabolizing all that. There are things that we hardly talked about 15 years ago and which today are realities that we want to inscribe very quickly in our lives, too quickly, I think. In my opinion, the discomforts are transgenerational, and that is why it seems to me that my show can concern all my contemporaries. »
Laugh at yourself
If Bégin is convinced that his show has nothing to create controversy, it is primarily because he knows how to laugh at himself. “I am full of self-mockery, he proclaims. That’s what saved me in life. Everyone should use it. It is essential. Collectively, I find that we lack a lot of self-mockery. At the moment, we have such sensitive skin, we are so inclined to condemn that we can no longer laugh at ourselves. When I venture on slippery slopes, when I approach subjects that arouse tension, I avoid being judgmental or judgmental. My reflex is to defuse the subject by going through me, making fun of my failings. When I feel overwhelmed, and it’s not uncommon, I don’t hesitate to admit it. »
But what have the deadly sins got to do with it? “Beyond the Judeo-Christian dimension of sins, explains Bégin, the fact remains that pride, gluttony, laziness, lust, avarice, anger and envy, these are themes that are very present in our lives. Greed, it’s wall-to-wall right now. People always want more. Sins, in the show, are a form, they are concepts that serve as levers for me to talk about other things. It allows me to approach the joys of aging, the disappearance of private space, the retreat of facts from beliefs, the staging of our lives… not to mention the anger that rumbles, everywhere and all the time. »