It is to an attractive fictional game that invites Pacific Palisades. Guillaume Corbeil’s creation takes place in reality to better lead us into a story with drawers. The solo piece is based on a main mise en abyme where the protagonist, an author named Guillaume Corbeil, is fascinated by a mystifier from Los Angeles, Jeffrey Alan Lash, who claims to be half extra-terrestrial.
Having gone to investigate the city of illusions about the scammer with false names, he slips himself into assumed identities. The character, whom his companion has just left, will discover during this search, which becomes a sort of game of mirrors, his own fantasy of escaping from himself, of finding refuge in otherness.
In this reflection on a time when, for many, beliefs take precedence over reality, the author of You will go get her and of Five faces for Camille Brunelle therefore continues to dig its thematic furrow on identity, but in a renewed form. We are here in the territory of Philip K. Dick – reference quoted in the play: within a paranoid world where reality hides another. A text where the various tracks echo each other in a cohesive, yet intriguing whole, a narrative that forms a loop.
Total control of the game
The show, skilfully orchestrated by Florent Siaud, first takes the form of a documentary conference, where, in front of a lectern, the performer who introduces himself as Guillaume Corbeil exhibits signs of reality: photos, books that the playwright really written.
But the choice of an actress to carry this solo immediately imposes the blurring between reality and fiction on which plays brilliantly Pacific Palisadeswhile reflecting the identity disorder of the character.
In total mastery of the game, Evelyne de la Chenelière soberly portrays the interpreter who monologues, and slips by subtle transitions into the skin of the other female characters, whom she brings to life in a convincing way.
The scenographic device designed by Romain Fabre – which also serves as a screen for David B. Ricard’s videos, unfolds gradually, reflecting the protagonist in constant transformation. It is when Guillaume takes on another identity for the first time, personifying his ex-girlfriend on Facebook, that one of the three panels first opens. Instead of the investigator on a storyteller, the character gradually becomes the protagonist of his own existential quest, losing himself in identities. Ultimately, Pacific Palisades reveals the sometimes misleading sirens of the fictions that humans invent, while eloquently illustrating the power of the imaginary narrative.