The playwright Evelyne de la Chenelière speaks of a “walk through the work of Albert Camus”. In fact, the author ofA life for two Where Bashir Lazhar has superimposed two narratives: the first stages the character of Meursault in the stranger, who will be played by Maxim Gaudette. While in the second, we find Medi, a young Algerian from Montreal, played by Mustapha Aramis.
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Aramis. His name probably predestined him to a career as an artist. The young Mustapha met the famous musketeer imagined by Alexandre Dumas through a Japanese cartoon in which Aramis was played by a woman. Years later he read The three Musketeers. A reading that he admits is remarkable. As for the strangerby chance he did not read it before this project.
“I was impressed by the modernity of the story, it was written in the 1950s! By his spare writing and by the exhaustive descriptions of the places too, details the actor, who left Algeria with his family at the age of 11. I wondered if he was depressed… In any case, I was struck by the impassivity of Meursault’s character. »
The reading ofBecause of the sun – a reference to the famous reply of Meursault, which thus explains his murder – she completely “snapped” him.
“Medi’s story is so close to me,” he explains.
Like him, we left Algeria in the 1990s, during the civil war, to find ourselves here. And while I didn’t lose my father in the tragic circumstances of my character, my mother died four years after we arrived. I was 15… After each of our readings, I was overwhelmed and emotionally tired.
Mustapha Aramis
Let’s go back to these two mirror stories imagined by Evelyne de la Chenelière, where the main characters of Meursault and Medi dialogue with each other.
First, there is Meursault (Maxim Gaudette). That we will find flanked by his girlfriend Marie (Evelyne Rompré) and his friend Raymond (Daniel Parent), at the origin of the drama, since, remember, “the Arab” who follows him, and that Meursault ends by killing, is the brother of Raymond’s mistress — whom he beat up for deceit.
Medi’s story takes place today, in Montreal, in the freezing cold of winter – in contrast to the crushing heat of the beaches of Algiers. “Two extremes that can cause a loss of meaning, a loss of self,” says Mustapha Aramis. His drama revolves around a distress call (ignored), launched by a woman trapped in her snowy car… That her friend Camille (Mounia Zahzam) will blame her for.
The two stories collide, all the characters respond to each other in a great conversation.
Pissing off… to love better!
Each of the protagonists will introduce themselves to the public. Even the Arab, interpreted by the young Sabri Attalah, has a face and a voice. Impossible not to think here of Kamel Daoud’s novel, Meursault, counter-investigationwho tells the stranger from the Arab’s point of view by playing the victim’s brother.
But Because of the sun don’t venture into those waters. It is about the emotions experienced by the two main characters. Their passivity, and the avoidance they practice, among other things. “It’s about their inner struggle that we’re talking about,” Mustapha Aramis tells us again. Their place in the world, in the society that welcomes them. Meursault is confronted with it as a pied-noir, just like Medi, as an immigrant. Two strangers in their own way.
Mustapha Aramis does not hide it, he faces it too, even if he has lived in Quebec for 26 years. Since graduating from the Quebec Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in 2014, he has played the swarthy or the Arabs.
By Michel Hamani in The blue Hour piece Heartby Robert Lepage, passing through a host of small roles… Is this something that irritates him?
“Of course there are moments of disgust. I love my job, but to love it better, sometimes I have to fuck it really hard! [rires]. In those moments, yes, it bothers me a bit, but it’s part of reality and who I am. Appearances matter a lot, but things are changing. And what is normal changes. In the theater and on television, things are moving. The fact is that we should not be obliged each time to justify our existence. »
Finally, is the conclusion of the story of Meursault or Medi the result of chance or the fulfillment of destiny? “If I rely on Camus, there is nothing predestined, answers Mustapha Aramis. The universe is not reasonable. I’m paraphrasing, but what he’s saying is that humans are continually looking for the meaning of things, but to spend their lives looking for that meaning is to miss out on their existence. »
Because of the sun, by Evelyne de la Chenelière, based on the work of Albert Camus. With Maxim Gaudette, Evelyne Rompré, Mustapha Aramis, Mounia Zahzam, Daniel Parent and Sabri Attalah. Directed by Florent Siaud. At the Théâtre Denise-Pelletier from September 21 to October 15.