rediscovering a malicious pleasure in blurring the cards between the absurd and committed humour, the humorous duo Brick et Brack continues its ascent. The duo will present a first Saint-Jean show on Friday, notably featuring the Tupac Shakur from Trois-Rivières, Sir Pathétik. An event as splintered as it is eclectic, in the image of the two extravagant sovereigntist poets who are a bit tacky and embody on stage.
With their pronounced mustaches, turtlenecks and sleeveless denim shirts, Brick and Brack look straight out of a 1976 Parti Québécois rally. never recovered from the 1995 referendum defeat.
In the interview, Sébastien Tessier and François Ruel-Côté, their real names, of course differ from their characters. But they maintain a vagueness on the real distance which separates them from these. Certainly, we understand that their artistic approach is imbued with irony, but we also understand that there is a bit of them in Brick and Brack.
“The strength of the characters is that they sometimes allow us to say exactly what we think, sometimes to go further than what we think, or sometimes even to say the exact opposite of what we think. . We sow confusion, people wonder if we are fooling. Yes, it’s absurd, yes, we laugh, but people still think about it, ”says François Ruel-Côté.
Course accident
Through Brick and Brack, two revolutionary junk poets, it is also a bit of themselves and their very demanding environment that the comedians make fun of. Not Gaston Miron or Gérald Godin, to whom they have sincere admiration. “We both have theater training. Wants not, we also bathed in this world, very sovereignist, which is of all causes, a little left. We too have already participated in very intense poetry evenings, in slam evenings that are not very good, a little heavy, ”adds François Ruel-Côté, alias Brick.
The two accomplices continue their respective acting careers. Breaking into the world of humor has never been part of the ambitions of those who met through improvisation. The Brick and Brack project, which began in 2018, was actually intended to be ephemeral from the start. Then the duo is invited, the following year, to the Zoofest. “We never thought it was going to last more than a year”, “after Zoofest, we were sure it was over”, they explain.
However, the pandemic will change the group’s plans. The theaters closed, the improv season on the ice, he decided to extend the adventure and signed up for the show in 2020 The next stand-up, broadcast on Noovo. To his great astonishment, Brick and Brack will go to the semi-finals of the competition, where he will have been noticed by Louis Morissette, one of the three judges. It is he who must produce their first tour, which is still at the break-in stage.
Left field
The projects are not lacking for the duo. In addition to his psychotonic podcast A country in the ear, he will present a show on Friday for the national holiday at Club Soda. He hopes to make this event a tradition for every Saint-Jean. For this first edition, he will share the stage with Fabiola Nyrva Aladin, Pascal Cameron and Coco Belliveau, among others. Brick and Brack also saw fit to invite rapper Sir Pathétik, famous for his song For my countrya first-degree sovereignist anthem that can just as easily be described as a laughingstock or a guilty pleasure, depending on who you talk to.
“We don’t see it as a Just for Laughs gala with guests who follow one another and who have nothing to do with each other. It will be a dialogue with the various guests. It will be a real incursion into the universe of Brick and Brack. We come from the theater, so we orchestrated a show very intense, with all sorts of surprises,” warns Sébastien Tessier.
The duo claims a share of absurdity. It’s hard not to think of Denis Drolet when you see him on stage always wearing the same costume. Brick and Brack also got into the habit of talking at the same time for comic effect. But the comparison with the men in brown ends there, argues Sébastien Tessier: “I understand that people associate us with Denis Drolet, but it’s really not the same thing. We represent something incarnate, political. We use humor as an excuse to talk about something we really support. »
Brick and Brack’s Saint-Jean
At Club Soda on June 23. With Coco Belliveau, Pascal Cameron, Fabiola Nyrva Aladdin, Claude Crest, Liliane Blanco-Binette and Sir Pathétik. Tickets on sale online.