In the theatrical season which is closing, Fifteen ways to find you occupies a very special place. In addition to marking a return to the stage this year for actress Anne-Marie Olivier, this solo also punctuates the last season scheduled by the one who, from 2012 and until last season, was in charge of the artistic direction of Trident . Any play on words with the title being excluded, it remains true that his presence here takes on the air of a reunion.
The initial argument is simple, delivered in a direct address to the public as soon as the curtain rises: the departure of a sister who, without being the one we quite believe, has chosen to break definitively with the actress — and Why ? Faced with this break with no apparent reason, faced with the questions repeated over and over, the woman of the theater thus elaborates fifteen ways of revisiting this link: one for each year that has passed since the unlinking.
Such a division, structure of the show nourished by Olivier’s experience, will have the notable advantage of immediately disconnecting our desire for a continuous narrative. Between a Beatles song inviting powerful memories or a friend from yesteryear also dropped, we let ourselves be carried away; between past episodes and reflections, present pains, we happily float along the scenes like a series of vignettes.
Certainly, these fifteen paintings would have benefited from being better defined perhaps, singled out. We find ourselves imagining more marked colors at the different stations, stage elements distinguishing them from each other on the fringes of the sole purpose of the actress – it could well be, however, that these are words for another show.
The staging by Maryse Lapierre, gentle and attentive, bets on sticking to the word that is the basis of these Fifteen ways. Let us think of the accompaniment on stage of the musician Benoît Shampouing, a dressing of discreet atmospheres which will certainly have some more incisive charges; to the magnificent backdrop, too: sometimes clouds and sometimes starry sky, the vast projection (Claudie Gagnon, Keven Dubois) casually gives the direction of the story, the horizon line of the show.
These elements remain discreet, however, in a show whose first thing that strikes is the quality of the address.
The strained word
Most notable of this Fifteen ways to find you lives entirely in the singular voice of Anne-Marie Olivier, who juggles here with an eminently personal material – what she calls her self-picking.
The various paintings end up painting a sensitive and complex portrait of this beloved but deceased person, tenderness not excluding anger or dissent, around the value of theater or the education of children for example, and more generally of the way in which each directs his life, his desire.
However, this portrait in the form of a journey is based almost entirely on the sole words of the actress who, under the features of an apparent banality, turn out to be riddled with images. A thousand finds, through a livery full of everyday life, reveal a finely crafted language, which nevertheless manages to be forgotten and to keep our attention captive, despite a scene kept very close to its simplest expression.
On the boards, this work of the text becomes the base of a unique, generous presence. Sharing is effective, touching; and if the finale leaves us with the impression of something unfinished, if the mourning that unfolds there resounds on an uncertain note, we nevertheless retain the lively feeling of a strong word which, in substance as much as by the form, knows how to remain turned towards his audience.
With body of humor that hits the mark or winks, frank and sincere sharing, Fifteen ways deploys the humility of a work of creation which, starting from the most intimate, remains stretched towards the other; precious work in our theatrical and cultural landscape which, together with Mauritius presented last October at Périscope, marks the return of a voice that has been heard too little in recent years.