Combining science and music, a look at humanity and a vision embracing the cosmos, If you ever listen to us offers a rich menu to teenage (and adult) spectators at Théâtre Denise-Pelletier. The creative duo of La Messe basse, Maxime Carbonneau and Laurence Dauphinais, had the good idea to draw inspiration from a not trivial episode of the space adventure: the composition of the Golden Record, a disc that NASA attached to space probes Voyager when they were launched in 1977.
Today, this sample, which aimed to present a summary of the Earth and humanity to potential extraterrestrial intelligences, also becomes a trace of what we are, which will survive us. In the introduction, the convincing performers (Robin-Joël Cool, Olivier Morin, Evelyne Rompré, Simon Landry-Désy and Phara Thibault), first playing themselves, remind the audience of the fear of disappearing that hangs over our planet. for ages. Let’s just say it didn’t get better…
The following table, where we reveal some of the content of Golden Record (which has been reissued by a record company), may seem a bit long. But the majority of the show – which also includes an interactive digital prologue, through an application -, a marriage of fiction and documentary, tells how a committee made up of artists and scientists selected the messages, sounds and images heterogeneous to be sent into space. The choice of musical pieces, above all, is here the subject of lively and passionate discussions between the characters.
I would have taken more interesting debates, such as the one around the refusal to integrate religious representations by the atheist astrophysicist Carl Sagan. But the story is really on a human level: the feelings that arise within the quintet of experts, originally formed of two couples, gradually color their mission. And the piece seems to weave echoes between the latter and human relationships. In a strong, eloquent scene, the chosen music (the intensity of Stravinsky, the melancholy of the blues) thus evokes what is happening in the team, transforming itself into a soundtrack of the emotions agitating the characters.
From the finitude of romantic relationships to the infinity of the starry sky: accompanied by an aerial song by Navet Confit, the scene that closes the show transports us in the wake of the probe. Impressive images whose immensity brings the human species back to its real proportion in the universe. Sagan’s final speech on our responsibility to preserve the Earth, both a small grain of sand that should teach us humility and the only home of humanity, has not aged a bit. Alas.