La Bordée opens its season with Heimat/Return, comedy about anxiety and attachment, first text by Mary-Lee Picknell. Opportunity, also, to see what kind of writing this talented actress offers (Hypo, The polygraph).
Christophe (Olivier Barrette) and Claire (Mary-Lee Picknell) meet on a bus. He comes back from Berlin, she lived in Stuttgart, the conversation goes smoothly. Then came the invitation: would she accompany him to his brother’s wedding? She’s free ; so yes, why not? However, the situation will quickly get bogged down, a layer of confusion blurring the rest: to the members of his family, he will tell that she is in fact Jana, his wife – whom they have never met, and that she will have to embody .
The stage is set for a series of misunderstandings and misunderstandings which have all the makings of a comedy of intrigue. She plays the German woman with her broken pronunciation, who the family believes is teaching Quebec; the two accomplices take refuge in the language of Nietzsche and multiply the collusions, so many winks for the public.
Through a relationship with the two brothers (Gabriel Fournier, Vincent Roy) which becomes clearer upon arrival at the chalet, under the protective eye of the parents (Lise Castonguay, Denis Marchand), the subterfuge tightens with each new dissimulation – the suspense holds, the springs will not be able to stretch indefinitely.
The sum of these shenanigans, with a rich humor that hits the mark, would have been enough to build a well-crafted summer theater.
Small objects
To the classic mechanisms of the comedy of intrigue is added, however, a finer attention to the characters, in particular to the strange, even twisted, link which connects Christophe to his family nucleus – this Heimat, this house which is not quite one for him. Something broke.
A first text, from an author also in the cast, could have suggested a story tied to personal concerns. The focal point, however, turns largely outward: this man who left to live abroad in a curious flight, and whom the writing accompanies here on tiptoe, as the sleep to preserve of a person would dictate. loved.
Directed by Maryse Lapierre (Fifteen ways to find yourself, The Plouffes), who follows the writing with great confidence, extending its sensitivity — beyond the laughter. The first sober scenes will leave two actors alone on stage, rare scenic elements being added little by little, the decor opening quietly until the arrival at the family chalet.
The warm strings of a folk guitar will give the sound signature of this comedy with a surplus of soul, where a delicate concern emerges for this man who struggles to say things, and whose restrained speech borders on retrenchment, on an extraordinary isolation: how can you love when you have never managed to take your place, to defend your voice?
If the resolution of tensions, after the denouement, may seem rapid, it is the tenderness and skill that emerge from the whole. The last painting, drawing on the miniatures that dotted the son’s childhood, will bring the focus back to the character of Claire, projecting a magnificent light onto her face. This finale, specifying in reverse the gesture of the piece, encapsulates the entire spectacle in a single remarkable image, one of those which can imbue the memory of the body.