Have you abused your liver over the holidays? The Cabaret Bio dégradable team, led for 15 years by artistic director Didier Morissonneau, begins the year by targeting your spleen. By reading hilarious excerpts from a dozen autobiographies of Quebec artists… and Julio Iglesias.
“I have spoken a lot so far about homosexuality and heterosexuality, but there is a more heartbreaking state: bisexuality. Many scientific theses have proven, it seems, that this state of life exists. If so, bisexuality is, in my humble opinion, the worst state of life,” writes the late cultural journalist Michel Girouard in I live my homosexualitypublished in 1980.
“He castigates bisexuals, whom he further qualifies as hypocrites, perverse and dangerous! In fact, he uses the same words that were used to discriminate against homosexuals! “, has fun analyzing Didier Morissonneau, met at the Lion d’Or the day before the Montreal performance.
It is he who chooses the excerpts that are read in this cabaret presented for 15 years – despite an absence of five years between 2013 and 2018, as well as during the two years of pandemic.
“During these periods, I was able to read new ones and add to them, explains Didier Morissonneau, who hosts the evenings and who often reads excerpts from works himself. On the other hand, it becomes more and more difficult to add more because we have a good text bank. But recently, singer Robby Johnson and millionaire coach Éliane Gamache Latourelle have been added, two solid contemporary authors who deserve our full attention. »
For the record, Didier Morissonneau recalls that it was producer André Ménard – co-founder of the Montreal International Jazz Festival – who put him on the trail of this degradable Bio Cabaret after learning that Vanna White – the hostess of the game show Wheel of Fortune – had published his autobiography (Vanna Speaks!) and was the subject of an “off Broadway” show.
“A New York producer had organized an evening where an actor read excerpts from his autobiography, where Vanna explained, among other things, that she had been chosen because she did the letters well,” recalls Didier Morissonneau, laughing. Then, excerpts from other autobiographies of American artists were read on stage, always in this playful tone.
It is therefore by taking inspiration from these evenings that the Cabaret Bio dégradable was born in 2008, on the second floor of the chic Café Cléopâtre.
Quebec’s biggest star!
Among the classics of bio-degradable Cabaret – in addition to Michel Girouard – we find the autobiographies of singer Marie-Chantal Toupin, wrestler Maurice “Mad Dog” Vachon, host Jacques Boulanger, actress France Castel, competitor of loft story Elisabetta Fantone (who wrote: “Who would have thought that I, a 23-year-old Italian-Quebecer, would one day be the biggest star in Quebec?”), disco singer Martin Stevens (Love is in the Air), etc.
Comedian Sylvain Larocque – who has also been a municipal councilor in Longueuil since 2021 in Catherine Fournier’s team – has been part of the hard core of performers since the beginnings of Cabaret Bio dégradable. Between two readings, he reads short sentences taken from the diary (published) of Julie Lemay, winner of the first edition of loft story.
We find among other gems: “Today, we were challenged to cover the equivalent distance between Montreal and Chicoutimi on a stationary bike: 454 km. Three hours of cycling at 30 km/h. »
Cabaret performers only read Quebec biographies… except for Julio Iglesias, who is the “international portion” of the show, quips Didier Morissonneau. “We could have done five hours with him. The whole book doesn’t make sense. Narcissism reaches peaks here. He talks about his chest, his skills on a bicycle, the people of the village who were amazed when they saw him, it’s incredible. »
The absurd, the pretentious and the uninteresting
In order to find these nuggets of gold, Didier Morissonneau read many autobiographies.
“There are books that are really interesting, like the bio of Dominique Michel or Gilles Latulippe, they are of no interest for the Cabaret. No more than the bios where we talk about painful or tragic experiences, illness or attacks. There is nothing funny in that. You have to find books that contain an element of absurdity, that are pretentious or narcissistic or not at all interesting. Books where you ask yourself: “Why? And for whom?” »
Several of these authors are now deceased (Michel Girouard, Mad Dog Vachon, etc.). Does the team feel uncomfortable reading certain texts? “Dead are defenseless”, said Aragon…
“There is a dilemma for a while, but it does not last, answers Didier Morissonneau. And then I realized that there are a lot of people in the room who don’t even know if the authors are dead or alive. “I don’t have a dilemma,” replies Sylvain Larocque. We must not forget that we only quote them, we do not despise them, we say nothing against them. »
Among the performers of this Friday’s show, we will find Anaïs Favron, Pierre-Luc Brillant, Mylène St-Sauveur, Sébastien Trudel, Charles-Alexandre Quesnel, Denis Marchand and Kim Lavack Paquin.
And in all this, do the authors on the menu express a certain frustration?
“It happens, answers Didier Morissonneau, but I explain to them that it’s for fun. It’s like a caricature of Chapleau. The Cynics said, “If one day you’re not worth a joke, you won’t be worth anything.” Honestly, we laugh at some passages they wrote, but we never ended a career. If it is, we perpetuate the memory of certain artists! he says, smiling.
At the Lion d’Or this Friday, 8 p.m.; at Cabaret St-John, in Bromont, on February 3 and April 7. Another performance will be given in Montreal on April 27 (as part of Blue Metropolis) for the 15th anniversary of the Cabaret.