“Life is dangerous: you can die”: this is the phrase that best encapsulates Involution, Maude Landry’s first show, which promises to be a highlight of the comic winter. Conversation about snakes and mental health.
Would you like to know some fascinating facts about snakes? So much the better. “Did you know that the anaconda isn’t the longest?” asks Maude Landry to the author of these lines who, no, did not know. “The longest is the reticulated python. The longest specimen listed was ten meters! Let’s try to explain how this interview took this unlikely detour!
“I try to make intelligent humor”, launches Maude Landry in Involution right after saying the dumbest joke of the evening. Effective self-mockery. But never mind: by borrowing from various forms of humor – absurd humor, anti-humour, stand up more traditional observational, songs – this first show, which The Press seen in running-in, is never anything other than a celebration of the spirit. In the same sense that the work of François Pérusse, one of the models of the 31-year-old artist, always addresses the luminous part of our imaginations, even in his most nonos puns.
I would never pretend to say that I do intelligent humor, because I feel silly most of the time, but I like to learn things, I like to cultivate my intelligence. I am a fat nerd who is interested in matters that nobody cares about.
Maude Landry
How many sleep science essays has she read during the pandemic? Six ! “It’s like saying that when I’m interested in something, I go all out. »
Go all out: it is also with this die-hard attitude that Maude Landry embarked on the open mic circuit in 2012, while she was still studying translation at university, “just to reassure [ses] parents “. With her timorous character of a young turtleneck lover who spouts unusual remarks, she will soon embody a comic genre that few women had hitherto embraced in Quebec – think of Pierre Légaré, but who would have spent his childhood in to listen The studio by Bruno Blanchet.
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Maude Landry at the Olivier gala in 2018. Her number “Les choses pas logiques”, presented at The evening is (still) youngearned him a statuette.
Her number “Things Not Logical” – because of which it is now impossible to walk past a branch of Manteaux Manteaux or Pizza Pizza without thinking of her – presented to The evening is (still) young won him an Olivier in 2018. And gave him access to an audience able to capture his unique frequency. ” The evening brought me the smarter audience that I needed, she believes, more than any gala I’ve been to. »
Transform Anxiety
“There’s a fine line between looking just weird enough and not being clear,” says Maude Landry about the difficult balance to achieve for someone who, like her, practices a humor that delights in defying expectations. A work of tightrope walker which she tackles with this first tour, taking great care to allow the public to get to know her better, and not only by disconcerting them.
Several of my number ideas are at the root of concern. That’s my defense mechanism: I turn anxiety and depression into jokes.
Maude Landry
No wonder his show has mental health as its red thread and his writing feeds on everything his brain whispers to him of panic. The first number she presented in her entire life, in 2012, was after all about the risks of perishing by receiving a coconut on the noggin.
What if Maude listed her anxieties for us? “I have so many intrusive thoughts that it makes me laugh. The planet is dying and I feel very helpless. Or sometimes the idea crosses my mind that I get hit by a car and my leg twists. In my head, I see the bone coming out, I see all the details, like in a movie. Why am I inhabited by this? Why can’t I live my life like the others? »
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, THE PRESS
Maude Landry
The good news is that Maude Landry is probably not the only one whose mind sometimes goes into freewheeling. More good news: anxiety is not a life sentence. “Take a look at my girlfriend”, sings Roger Hodgson in Breakfast in Americathe song to the sound of which Maude Landry goes on stage, because she is a fan of Supertramp.
“But it’s also to remind me that I have to be my own girlfriend, my own friend. I have long been my worst critic: Why did you miss it?, why are you not good? But today, above the criticism, I have a cheerleading who tells me that I’m going to be fine and that if I’m angry or sad, maybe it’s just because I haven’t been out to see the sun all day. »
Involution by Maude Landry, on tour throughout Quebec
A winter like no other
Besides Maude Landry, who can we laugh with this winter? With Ève Côté, who presents her premier cru solo (January 31 at the Olympia). With the always reliable Simon Gouache (February 21 at the Olympia). With the boy like no other, Jean-Sébastien Girard (March 15 at the Olympia). With Fabien Cloutier, who promises to be Delicate (March 21 at Club Soda). Daniel Lemire will celebrate his 40-year career on April 26 at Espace Saint-Denis, while Jérémy Demay will most likely not celebrate his victory at Big Brother Celebrities during the premiere of Natural (May 27 at the Olympia).