“I have lived in two worlds,” explains Gilles Maheu. “I have known the avant-garde world and the pop world. Let me tell you that there is good and bad on both sides. Some people were angry with me for having made this transition, but after all these years of an autobiographical approach that was in some way my psychoanalysis, I felt like I had gone around my garden. I felt a strong need to accomplish something else, but I was far from imagining that it would last 25 years!”
At 76, sitting in the foyer of this Usine C that he helped found 30 years ago, the director has the vitality of a young man. Called by work to Paris, Shanghai or Montreal, the creator recharges his batteries by settling in Frelighsburg or in the south of France. While Don Juanthe show he created 20 years ago, will be presented around forty times in Quebec and Ontario this summer. We met the man so that he could revisit his exceptional artistic career with us.
With the Carbone 14 company, founded in 1981, and then Usine C, inaugurated in 1995, Gilles Maheu has contributed some of the most important pages to the history of Quebec theatre. White bread has The library Passing by The dormitory And Dead Soulshis multidisciplinary shows left a deep mark on their era. In a clear break with the ambient textocentrism, they gave pride of place to the body, but also to song, music and video. Twenty years later, we still refer to this golden age as “the Carbon 14 period”.
A spectacular turn
In 1998, Gilles Maheu accepted an offer that would change the course of his career: to direct Notre Dame de Paristhe musical comedy by Luc Plamondon and Richard Cocciante inspired by the novel by Victor Hugo. “Luc hesitated to make me this proposal,” explains the director. “He thought that a classic like that couldn’t interest me. But I’ve always loved this novel. I even did a choreography, a long time ago, in Lennoxville, which took the characters of Quasimodo and Esmeralda into a courtyard in scrap. »
Since its creation, more than 25 years ago, Notre Dame de Paris has been seen by more than seven million spectators in 12 countries. In 2022 and 2023, the production even made a notable appearance on Broadway. “It’s incredible,” admits Maheu. “No one could have predicted this astonishing success. We’ve just redone the Palais des Congrès in Paris, where the show was born. The theaters are full. We’re starting a year-long tour in China in August. It’s safe to say that it’s become a classic.”
While some have felt his shift as a betrayal, a move motivated by the lure of gain, the most attentive observers will have noticed that Maheu’s unique signature is very present in his large-scale shows, and even that it largely explains their beauty, their effectiveness, their singularity and their exceptional influence. “I still do Carbone 14,” says the creator. “It’s a different context, but the fact remains that my staging of musicals is an extension of the dance theatre that I was doing at the time. I have always enjoyed bringing together actors, dancers and singers on stage. In the past, I worked with Lou Babin, Pauline Vaillancourt, Pauline Julien and Térez Montcalm. That’s who I am, I can’t adopt a style other than my own. What I communicate to the performance is my energy, my rhythm, my vision.”
In 2002, Maheu co-signed with Lewis Furey the staging of Cindya musical comedy by Luc Plamondon and Romano Musumarra that almost didn’t see the light of day. In 2007, he directed an opera in Beijing entitled Butterflies. In 2008, he signed Zaiaa Cirque du Soleil show in residence in Macao. For about fifteen years, the creator has been happy to escort his great successes around the world. “Of course, I don’t go everywhere, I choose my cities. I have excellent assistants, whom I trust completely. But when I’m there, it really makes me happy to be there. With the changes in the cast, the performers that I have to bring to surpass themselves, to reveal themselves, to fully embody the character, it’s never the same, never boring.”
Throughout his career, Gilles Maheu has received countless professional offers that he has refused, often without hesitation and without regret. “During the time of Carbone 14,” he remembers, “the Quat’Sous and the TNM approached me. I was offered to do cinema, and even, as crazy as it may seem, to host a radio show. Then, there were several offers of musicals, here and elsewhere, circus, opera… I always said no. For me to get started, there has to be something that speaks to me, that the story, the text or the music stimulates my imagination.”
Don Juan continues to seduce
In 2004, Maheu directed Don Juanthe musical comedy by Félix Gray inspired by a character of a seducer whose myth has fascinated people since at least as far back as the 17th century.e century of Tirso de Molina and Molière. To date, the show has been seen by 600,000 people. After 70 performances in several major cities in China this spring, the 20th anniversary celebrations will continuee birthday of Don Juan this summer by visiting Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City and Trois-Rivières. “And we will return to Seoul next year,” Maheu tells us.
While Don Juan is played by the Italian Gian Marco Schiaretti, the role of Maria is played by Cindy Daniel, who created the role of Elivra, now played by the French Alyzée Lalande. Roxane Filion, who many knew as a chorister in the show Live from the universeplays Isabel, the fortune teller. In the clothes of Don Carlos, Don Juan’s faithful friend, we find Olivier Dion, who was D’Artagnan in The 3 Musketeers, show directed in France by René Richard Cyr and Dominic Champagne. While Philippe Berghella returns to the character of Raphael, Don Juan’s rival, a role he created 20 years ago, Robert Marien will play Don Luis, the father of the terrible seducer.
Galvanized by the flamenco of Carlos Rodriguez and Angel Rojas, the production still benefits from the resplendent setting imagined by Guillaume Lord (scenography), Axel Morgenthaler (lighting) and Randy Gonzalez (video), a fantasized Seville where the shimmering costumes of Georges Lévesque and Michèle Hamel are donned by eight performers, two musicians and fifteen dancers. “The staging is essentially the same as it was 20 years ago,” explains the man who works closely with his assistant, Wayne Fowkes. “We only removed a few props, to lighten the load, and we added an LED screen at the back of the stage, which allows us to create completely new images, especially in the second act.”
Before leaving Gilles Maheu, we can’t help but ask him what he sees for the future. “I’m into writing,” he explains. “I’m a bit slow and lazy, but I’ve started writing what you might call a memoir. It’s a sort of conversation with myself, where I discuss my childhood in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, my work, my travels. I also allow myself a few thoughts on Quebec society. I’m about a hundred pages in. I’m also doing it for my daughter, who is 22, so she knows where I come from, where she comes from.”