A trip to Zoofest | There is the word laughter in discovering

Thanks to its pass formula allowing you to attend several shows during the same week, or even the same evening, the Zoofest is the ideal opportunity to enter a venue blindly and have a chance to discover his new favorite comedian. Report of our little trip to the festival, which continues until July 31.

Dominic Late
The Press

Mégan Brouillard already has, despite her early twenties, what many comedians take years to refine: a stage character that is both singular and clear. Noticed thanks to her videos on TikTok, the newcomer expresses herself with a mixture of earthiness worthy of the boyfriend à Chabot by Fabien Cloutier and with the aplomb of a middle-aged woman who has long given a damn what other people think of her.

She would have, before passing through the benches of the National School of Humor, personified for a few summers the village idiot at the Village québécois d’antan in Drummondville, which – let her not take it as an insult – is not so surprising.

Megan Brouillard doesn’t exactly play an idiot, however, but rather a woman who drapes her insight and exasperation at other people’s idiocy in numerous appeals to common sense.

Seen last Friday night, his show quackgrass shines with the greenness of the language in which his numbers are carved, a combination of preposterous expressions and regionalisms that allows him to speak with the same rasping elegance of the stupidity of his brothers or of a first romantic date with a marshal -shoeing.

His number mocking the arrogance of graduates of private schools effectively highlights the way in which economic disparities still configure social relations, without the comedian looking like the one who unpacks his dissertation on the class struggle.

Her feminism, although never referred to as such, permeates many of her jokes, which makes her sad that she was told from childhood that “it is not beautiful a woman who crowns” or castigates the disinterest that generates women’s hockey (a surprising subject, but very promising). At the heart of a humorous succession over which mimicry reigns, Mégan Brouillard can already boast of being alone in her category.

between sarcasm and spirit ankle boot

“Are there any Nazis in the room?” PO Forget loves to attack a subject by asking the audience an obnoxious question, while pretending that there is nothing more standard as an introduction. With his musician look stoner rock, the gentle Sasquatch-like man expresses himself in a rubbery tone, all in relaxation and diphthongizations, reminiscent of his friend Yannick De Martino.

But a major difference between the two comedians: where De Martino uses absurd humor to bring out the redundancy of certain comic devices, Forget puts absurd humor at the service of a series of socio-political reflections on the inflammability of public debate , the real estate crisis or the financial precariousness of people of his generation.

Entitled my finest hour, his first show, seen last Thursday evening, is between sharp sarcasm and wit. His most effective tool? Never too seem to measure all the ramifications of the sentences that come out of his mouth.

The archetype of the endearing slacker on whom the illuminations fall after having inhaled one or two puffs of artist’s tobacco, the stage character of PO Forget is one of those who intelligently embody the capacity of the new guard to tie down the silly and the social.

trout future

Sinem Kara, Suzie Bouchard, Rachelle Elie, Marylène Gendron, Garihanna Jean-Louis. This edition of Zoofest was announced, on paper, as that of the triumph of women. A prediction confirmed by Véronique Isabel Filion and Jessica Chartrand thanks to their show troutseen last Friday evening, during which they share the microphone for 30 minutes each.

Judicious formula, in that it gives enough time to these recruits of laughter to properly camp their universe, even if they do not yet have enough material to hold an hour under the spotlights.

With engaging candor and assumed fragility, Véronique Isabel Filion skillfully broke the ice by embroidering around the theme of body image, although being careful not to overplay self-mockery. Jessica Chartrand inhabits the scene with the assurance of an old trucker and manages to renew subjects such as homophobia, while deconstructing various tough stereotypes.

They are both proof that the future of Quebec humor is feminine.

quackgrass by Mégan Brouillard, July 19 at 9 p.m. at the Cabaret du 4^e of the Monument-National

my finest hour by PO Forget, July 18 at 9 p.m. at the Cabaret du 4^e of the Monument-National

trout by Jessica Chartrand and Véronique Isabel Filion, July 19 at 7:30 p.m. at the Cabaret du 4^e of the Monument-National