Between Christine Beaulieu and Philippe Cyr, not only a bond has developed, but a real mutual admiration. “Philippe does theater in a way that appeals to me a lot. In the form, there is always something new, stunning, ”explains Christine Beaulieu, who goes to see all her shows – even those of theater school graduates! — since he directed it in selfiein 2015. After their fruitful collaboration on the documentary piece I like Hydroa “particular, striking adventure, which has left important positive traces”, Philippe Cyr wanted to find this actress “generous, with mind-blowing abilities”, in a score offering her a lot of creative space.
What is the case ofUnbearable long embraces, by Ivan Viripaev. Cyr is staging this major Russian author for the first time, whose Prospero Theater has presented a fourth play in 10 years, after Oxygen, Illusions And drunk, directed by Christian Lapointe or Florent Siaud. “I’ve always been jealous of the directors who staged Viripaev! laughs the new artistic director of the theatre.
To describe the peculiarity of the playwright, Cyr dares to use the word “kinesthetic”. “When I read this author, I physically feel something. Artists who manage to do that are very rare. Viripaev transmits that in the rhythm, in the writing, in the form of the story, in the way he plays with the flow of thought. It is fabulous. »
The creator is full of praise for this author who constantly surprises. “He is able to generate a lot of ideas in the viewer. It stimulates the imagination, reflection. And he himself makes his ideas collide within the text. This process is in almost constant boiling, which is fascinating to observe. It’s a really living material, like few texts on which I had to work. »
And this “radical” author is also a dissident. The Russian now lives in Poland, and “at the start of the war [en Ukraine], he said that he was giving all his royalties to foundations that would help the Ukrainian people”. Result: the one who was “played a lot” in his country of origin is now “completely banned” there.
Unbearable long embraces exposes the quest for the absolute of four thirty-year-olds who seek to feel that they are alive, sums up Christine Beaulieu. “How do you feel alive? It’s a big question that we all ask ourselves at some point, or every day, I think. And the thirties are precisely the age when the big questions urgently arise about the meaning of one’s life and the need to find one’s place in the world.
Between New York and Berlin, these characters, generally expatriates, “are looking for a place where they will feel good. But does it really exist, an elsewhere where one can blossom fully? Finally, elsewhere on Earth, we always come back to our same human reality. And in searching for an answer, each character begins to communicate with “a being from another galaxy” inside them, which takes multiple forms – often surprising… Is it God, the Universe, them- same?
“They try to imagine another world,” adds the director. It’s as if they were making a clean sweep of what exists to try to invent something else, another relationship to the world. But it’s very difficult to imagine anything other than what we know. “If this quest is here linked to a stage of life, the thirties, the text resonates for everyone, he specifies. The play takes a look at how “relationships between people work in our current capitalist society”.
And for the creator, the work echoes “what we are going through: there is a real attempt to redefine the world differently now, to redefine the relationship to oneself and to others. Things are changing, and that’s good! We rename identities, affiliations, gender issues. At the same time, a kind of criticism runs through the text: in the end, in this attempt to be in contact with oneself, it is with themselves that the characters speak. The blind spot of this very spiritual search is therefore “a rather individualistic gesture, which disregards the other”.
Dark humor
The quartet ofUnbearable long hugs is engaged in extreme experiences, self-destructive behaviors. Philippe Cyr sees in it “a form of humor, because there are so many big clichés: sex, drugs, rock and roll. Viripaev has fun distorting these shots, and it ends up being quite funny. We laugh a little at ourselves, our quests and our big questions, through that. The genius of this text is to mix mysticism and comedy. It’s rare to achieve that tone in writing. And Cyr believes “that we can offer the public works that are demanding, but that are also seductive, entertaining”.
His staging will also “embrace” the continual ruptures of this work where the performers are sometimes narrators, then plunge into the incarnation, moving from a “detached game to an exacerbated game”. In the Prospero rehearsal room where we met the duo, Christine Beaulieu then exhibits her copy of the piece, a colorful notebook where the lines are highlighted in distinct colors, explaining which voice corresponds to the blue (the narration), yellow (“the being from another galaxy”) and orange (his character, Monica). “For me, as an actress, there are really three totally different addresses”, explains the one who always annotates her scores (“I am very studious!”). “And it creates fabulous scenes, I think, very theatrical moments. I think it will be fun for the viewer. »
For Cyr, it is a ” show of actors. It calls for virtuosity, because it’s very difficult to do what Christine describes”. In putting together his cast, which also includes Marc Beaupré, Joanie Guérin and Simon Lacroix, he was looking for both very skilled performers and “different beings”. Couples interchanging in the room, the four here form “surprising combinations”.
And in the work of creation, the director relies on emulation, subjecting his performers to a little game to stimulate them. “I always tell them: ‘You also have to impress your partners. And surprise them. What’s the next card you take out of your deck that could move the story forward? What’s your new thing that we haven’t seen so far? »
“We bounce off each other a lot. It’s quite exciting,” says Christine Beaulieu, who praises her colleagues, but also the team of “exceptional” designers (Odile Gamache in scenography, Cédric Delorme-Bouchard in lighting, Vincent Legault in music and Wendy Kim Pires in costumes) of the production.
Finally, the actress believes that Viripaev’s play, with its path that constantly takes unexpected directions, composes a kind of image of life, with its unpredictable character. “There are always things that you couldn’t imagine at all, that completely change your path. Personally, life constantly surprises me. It’s hard for humans to accept that. We all tend to want to have certainties, to reassure ourselves. But it’s like [l’auteur] told us a little: accept that you will not have a certain basis, that there will always be doubts and never anything really settled. »
“Life is chaotic, crazy, surprising, agrees his accomplice. And the theater can be too. »