On the occasion of the 100e anniversary of the birth of Jean Paul Riopelle, Robert Lepage devotes to the painter, considered by many to be the father of artistic modernity in Quebec, an ambitious show, a triptych lasting 4:30 hours (including two intermissions of 20 minutes) . The nine performers Riopelle Projectlead the public, often dazzled, sometimes moved and abundantly amused, from the 1940s until the very beginning of the 2000s, from automatism to surrealism, from figuration to abstraction, from Montreal to Paris, via East Hampton , Sainte-Marguerite-du-Lac-Masson, L’Isle-aux-Grues and Saint-Cyr-en-Arthies.
From the first seconds, there is a crying lack of oil in the gears. Of course, the production is at the very beginning of the course, but for the time being, the changes of scenery, numerous and not always relevant, are tedious from start to finish. This does not prevent us from feeling great happiness in reconnecting with Lepage’s aesthetic vocabulary. From daily moments to dreamlike sequences, from vaudeville scenes to lyrical flights, from bodies seated in a café to those cleverly embedded in a sublime landscape, we find here most of the motifs that have made the designer famous.
Unfortunately, from a dramaturgical point of view, the show co-written with Steve Blanchet and Olivier Kemeid resembles a series of scattered tableaux, mismatched vignettes, juxtaposed postcards. We drive through the streets of the City of Light, we rush in a rowboat on the Seine, we fly over the immensity of the Far North. Then we walk on the beach, we skate on the frozen lake, we contemplate the flight of wild geese. It’s very pretty, we laugh a lot, we meet important figures, from André Breton to Joan Miró via Muriel Guilbault, Maurice Richard, Samuel Beckett, Marcelle Ferron and Jackson Pollock, but we can’t help but notice that the subject of the work, Jean Paul Riopelle, escapes its creator.
Thus the show teaches us little about the man, about his ideas and his convictions, in short about the thought that underlies his approach. Only the reconstitution of an interview given to Fernand Seguin on Radio-Canada in 1968 allows us to enter briefly into the artist’s psyche. Undeniably talented, undeniably inhabited by a rich inner world, as evidenced by his paintings, the being depicted on stage is no less silent, sullen, even unsympathetic. And what about his lackluster behavior towards women. Under sometimes grotesque wigs, Luc Picard demonstrates accuracy, but he struggles to bring nuance to his character.
Truth be told, some of the secondary roles leave a more vivid impression than the hero. In the clothes of Claude Gauvreau, brilliant designer with wavering mental health, Étienne Lou is overwhelming. In the shoes of Joan Mitchell, the American painter who shared Riopelle’s life for nearly 25 years, Anne-Marie Cadieux is fascinating. In the roles of dancer Vincent Warren and poet Frank O’Hara, Philippe Thibault-Denis and Gabriel Lemire perform a ballet of breathtaking splendor by the sea. Alongside Lemire, who is also a truculent young Riopelle, Noémie O’Farrell embodies a young, neurotic Mitchell. Playing several characters, Audrée Southière, Violette Chauveau and Richard Fréchette are clever chameleons.
This Riopelle Project is not without flaws, of course, but as in The geometry of miracles, a show that Lepage devoted to the architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 2000, moments of rare beauty occur on the stage of the Duceppe theater these days, points of junction between substance and form, between life and art, between the work in progress and the emotion that feeds it. We wish you to be witnesses to these moments of grace.