“Fitting into the mould”, or how an autistic child upsets and dazzles family life

We slip into the family intimacy through the small door. That of Vincent’s room, a young boy who, despite himself, does not fit into any mold. He has no equal in recognizing the stars, but if he doesn’t have two forks to eat his fries on one side and his meat on the other, he loses his footing. Vincent has Asperger’s autistic syndrome. In the kitchen, his disarmed parents have just learned that, for lack of a school life assistant, he no longer has a place at school. “It will be fine, we will find a solution”they repeat as if to better convince themselves that it is not so serious.

Created for the Off d’Avignon, Fit into the mold is a sensitive and poetic piece about the daily life of a family forced to row against the tide. The father (Jacob Porraz), the mother (Nathalie Mann) and the sister (Valentine Galey), constantly on a thread, torn between tenderness for this different boy and the habit of conforming to what society expects of him. them. Together, come what may, they will courageously face the violence of institutions and despair. A path as painful as it is joyful and liberating for each of them.

The actress Juliette Duval – whose first creation this is – signs the dialogues and the staging. She was inspired by her personal encounters to imagine the character of Vincent. “I babysat autistic children when I was a teenager, she says. They have a poetry and a sensitivity that touches me. Their outlook on the world is sublime.”

As a child, I was silent, dreamy, different. I felt excluded. I met a child with autism, we sat next to each other. It did me good to meet him.

Juliette Duval

author and director

In the role of the autistic son, Jean-Luc Porraz embodies a young boy who is both endearing and disarming, who sometimes combs his hair from the bottom up and wonders “How can you sleep soundly”. A delicate role where the trap of caricature is never far away. For the actor, it was not a question of copying the behavior of autistic children. “I tried to understand situations, states of stress, he explains. I went to tap into my own emotions and found commonalities.”

By small touches, this extraordinary son makes each of the members of his family grow: the worried mother, the father prisoner of paternal loyalty and the daughter tempted by effacement and perfection so as not to make waves.

At the exit of the Théâtre du Balcon, the moist eyes of certain spectators say a lot about the beauty of the text and the characters. Juliette Duval is still surprised by the “number of people who tell me that they are affected”. “We were a little afraid of not hitting it right”confirms Jacob Porraz who portrays a sincere and moving father.

Beyond the handicap, it is the difference that the play questions. “We all have quirks that we think we have to hide”, says the author. How to remain oneself without giving in to social or family injunctions? The path to discover it is infinitely long.

“Fit into the mould” by Juliette Duval, at the Balcon theater (84 rue Guillaume Puy, in Avignon). Until July 30, at 12:45 p.m. No class on July 12, 19 and 26.