It took guts to embark on such a project: adapting for the stage an epistolary relationship that lasted 15 years between the two sacred monsters that are the writer Albert Camus and the actress Maria Casarès. The result is overwhelming, especially for the force of his words.
A total of 865 letters spanning some 1300 pages, in addition to countless interviews, plays, speeches. This is the sum of texts that served as the basis for constructing the play I’m writing to you in the middle of a beautiful storm, presented at the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde. Actor and poet Dany Boudreault has done a fine job of extracting from this mass of literature a narrative framework of sublime beauty.
It must be said that the two lovers handled the verb with grace. Their words carry sometimes the passion and the desire, sometimes the jealousy of one or the artistic doubts of the other. But always, these words are precise as scalpel blows and remain of an intensity that only mad love can generate.
One of the great strengths of this piece is to manage to make us forget Casarès and Camus to leave all the room to Maria and Albert, two beings of flesh who expose themselves to each other in all their vulnerability.
In the role of Maria Casarès, Anne Dorval is solid and skilfully handles a very complex score. Her voice trembles a little when she takes on the features of a Maria at the dawn of her sixties, her laugh becomes crystalline to evoke the actress in all the ardor of her youth. Only downside: when she becomes Maria the tragic actress, Anne Dorval does a little too much (perhaps to better stick to the very mannered acting of the actresses of the 1950s). His acting bordering on caricature sparked a few inappropriate laughs in the room on the night of the premiere.
In the skin of Albert Camus, Steve Gagnon is very accurate. Often on edge, he delivers an interpretation a thousand miles from the image of the writer in perfect control that the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature exuded. Unlike Maria Casarès, the character of Camus remains frozen in time. Died at the age of 46 in an automobile accident, the writer will never grow old…
The power of words
During the staging, Maxime Carbonneau found several strong images, especially during the very moving finale (we won’t divulge anything here). The use of video also adds an interesting dimension. However, many lines are exchanged statically, the two lovers standing on either side of the stage. We must therefore listen more carefully, because it is through words more than through scenic ingenuity that this show reaches our hearts.
In fact, it was not easy to give life to lovers of ink and paper, who wrote long fiery letters to fill their estrangement. Maxime Carbonneau, who is entering the TNM with this piece, has succeeded in recalling this physical distance, but also in depicting all the loving and artistic complicity of Camus and Casarès.
These two loved each other despite everything. And this larger-than-life love reaches us through a demanding spectacle, certainly, but imbued with great beauty.
I’m writing to you in the middle of a beautiful storm, adapted by Dany Boudreault, directed by Maxime Carbonneau. With Anne Dorval and Steve Gagnon. At the TNM until February 19.
I’m writing to you in the middle of a beautiful storm
Adapted by Dany Boudreault, directed by Maxime Carbonneau. With Anne Dorval and Steve Gagnon.
At the TNM until February 19.