Étienne Pilon tastes the caustic humor of Catherine Léger. “She has a fine pen for writing characters that feel realistic, in contexts where everything is in place to resemble everyday life, but which are slightly off. Where there is a progression in the story which means that at some point, things get out of hand. The characters go to excess. She manages to surprise us, when we least expect it. And it does not give a solution. Catherine talks about things she observes, there’s a philosophical aspect to it, but it’s not moralistic, which I like. She kind of puts her characters in an aquarium, and they try to get by, but she doesn’t judge them. »
After girls on the loose in 2017, at La Licorne, it was the second time that the actor had the opportunity to interpret the sharp writing of the author of Baby sitter. If he is no stranger to comedy, including summer comedy, we more readily associate Étienne Pilon, whom we meet when he comes out of a rehearsal of Twelfth Night, the fourth Shakespeare of his career (for the TNM, next fall), with intense, dramatic roles. Characters that allow this actor who likes to “dig, repeat, read and reread” to delve deeply into his roles. “That said, the fact remains that the character I play in the summer theater is a very intense guy! he said, laughing.
In To change life, created by the essential summer institution that is the Petit Théâtre du Nord, in Boisbriand, he embodies Ricardo, who, without revealing a punch, suddenly makes a rather radical decision. “There is a domino effect in the story. Each of the characters knocks some down, upsets another. It is first Jasmine (Marilou Morin), in crisis, who arrives without warning at her Facebook “friend” Nathalie (Mélanie St-Laurent). Embedded, she will have a strong influence on her hostess, who questions her seemingly accomplished life, as well as on her husband (Ariel Ifergan), a film producer with a disappointing career.
“These are all characters leading a life that does not seem completely satisfying to them, who are at a crossroads in their existence, where they have the possibility of getting out of it, of changing, of carrying out a [virage à] 180 degrees, explains Étienne Pilon. But they do it in a somewhat superficial way, so that it remains shaky. It’s as if they are looking for solutions outside of themselves, that they don’t take the time to sit down and ask themselves: is this what I really want? »
Not just virtue
This piece, where everything starts from an Internet publication, also addresses the effect of social networks, which have amplified chronic dissatisfaction with our choices. “Because we have access to everyone’s life. And there’s something superficial there too, I think: it’s the nicest thing they put in our face, on these networks, not the depressed evenings! When we scroll his Facebook page, you can quickly do it: he’s lucky… In any case, the desire to be something else crosses my mind sometimes. For example, for an actor who sees others get roles, let’s admit on television, sometimes it’s easy to become envious, to want something other than what our own life gives us. »
And then you have to make the effort to remember everything that you yourself have, everything you do. The actor says he is very modest on social media. “I don’t judge people who do [beaucoup de publications], but me, it seems that it intimidates me. It makes me feel uncomfortable ! I don’t want to share this intimacy. »
In To change life, a play directed by Sébastien Gauthier, the two male characters seem more sensitive than their female counterparts, themselves stronger in a way. “They have a fragility in their emotional intensity, confirms the actor. It is true that they are well connected with their emotions. “While Jasmine and Nathalie, who make decisions, “maybe more in the action. There was that too girls on the loose : the three guys were a bit in tow. But at the same time, what I like about these characters is that they are not just virtue. They too are caught in their faults, in the bad decisions they make. Sometimes they go too far. That’s what’s interesting.”
The interpreter boasts of the “tremendous team” he is surrounded by and the pleasure he finds in the moving process of a theater creation (“until very recently, Catherine was still rewriting the end of the play”). In short, dissatisfaction is obviously not Étienne Pilon’s lot this summer.