All the work of Édouard Louis “calls for the theater, says the director Jérémie Niel. It is a work of images, of evocation, of politics, of nostalgia, of emotions”. But among the autobiographical novels that the Frenchman has published since his resounding entry into literature with Finish with Eddy Bellegueulehis who killed my father, which Niel presents at the Quat’Sous, is “the most theatrical”, by the urgency of a writing which “grabs from the first lines”. Commissioned by actor and director Stanislas Nordey, who then edited it, the text has been adapted by several scenic creators, and not the least: Thomas Ostermeir, Ivo van Hove…
To embody this hard-hitting monologue in which a young writer, freed from his original working class, speaks to his silent father crushed by factory life, Niel has chosen two director-actors. Félix-Antoine Boutin, whom he had just directed in Face to face (created at La Chapelle in 2021), carries the solo score. “Even if the story takes place in the north of France and our lives are different, there is something that joins me, which resembles me, says this one. I was able to capture concrete things in my surroundings, my relationship with my parents, that I could put inside me. »
Martin Faucher, he was attracted by the “putting into political perspective” of the father figure, a character not very “deep in Quebec theater, where there was a lot of talk about the absence of the father. And in my generation, in the space of 30, 40 years, between the lives of our fathers and ours, there is an incredible world, there was a revolution. I find it interesting to see how a son can accuse and at the same time analyze this figure that remains mysterious, how we can take a look at 30 years of life that we don’t know, ultimately. And how the son seems to hold a truth and, at the same time, something else can escape him” in this father who does not speak. “I don’t know anything about my father,” he adds. I was young when he died. »
“It’s super interesting what is happening in our discussion, then intervenes Jérémie Niel. And that’s what [suscite] Édouard Louis: we always find ourselves talking about our lives, talking about this text. And it was a lot like that in the creative process, even with the designers: there’s something in the room that touches everyone’s intimacy. And this intimate, the text tries to give it a social or political force, to universalize it. »
In his monologue, the son evokes his relationship with his parent, recalls the violence of what this man has suffered and what he has done, explores how his condition has made him who he is. “He sinks into the complexity of a human,” says Niel. And we see all the protean nature of the character of the father, but with pieces of his personality that have been truncated by life. »
At the heart of who killed my father raises the issue of the social class divide. “I think that there is a desire in Édouard Louis to make the most precise description of reality possible, advances the director. And to restore beauty to the working classes. The author also sheds light on power relations and the “areas of tension existing between social classes” with great accuracy and finesse. “He dissects the mechanics of domination. It is this mechanism that is really disturbing, because we see its effectiveness. »
A subject of “burning” news, as evidenced by the protest movement of yellow vests, the manifestation of anger which the two interpreters have also witnessed during trips to France.
indictment
In addition to this attempt to bring father and son closer together, who killed my father launches a real indictment, a denunciation of inhuman political measures that shorten the lives of people from the underprivileged classes. A kind of I accuse where several French rulers are named. If the text has not been adapted to Quebec, Jérémie Niel thinks that the spectators will receive it with their own referents. “The principle remains the same: how specific political decisions can have a direct impact on certain populations, even on their bodies. The author writes that it is strange, the people who make politics are those for whom these decisions have almost no effect on their lives. And that, no matter where you live, is profoundly true. »
Even if, in France, the manner is more “ostentatious”, believes Félix-Antoine Boutin (“there is an arrogance, let’s say from Emmanuel Macron, compared to these populations, which could not pass here” ), the three creators believe that basically, the portrait is not very different in Quebec. “For example, cutting hospital beds: I think that all the people who made these decisions will never leave their child at 5 p.m. in the emergency room; therefore decisions that do not directly impact them”, illustrates Niel.
For the director, masculinity is also at the center of the play. “It touched me a lot in the text, the way in which we talk about masculinity, in all its globality, its complexity, its strengths and its weaknesses. How also Louis describes the bodies of men. “But it is also a macho conception of man (“a strong masculine model that persists” for some, notes Faucher) leading to homophobia, a vision which the father inherited, which opposed him to his gay son. .
Body
“I’ve never played a lot, so every time I make a comeback ! jokes Martin Faucher. The last time we saw the director as an actor was in 2014 in descent (by Dany Boudreault and Maxime Carbonneau), in the Jean-Claude Germain room of the Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui. Strangely, he points out, he was then a “worker, alcoholic, homophobic father”…
To play the silent father figure – who was moreover embodied by models in the creation at the Théâtre national de la Colline – Jérémie Niel chose the former director of the Festival TransAmériques because of his “very strong” physical presence.
“It’s a very special, very mysterious acting job, says the interpreter. I don’t say a word, but I’m there all the time. And that goes beyond listening: there is another word that is expressed. A language that is not only psychological, a scenic language. Faucher uses a lot of lessons learned during his thirties: exploratory workshops with the choreographer Daniel Léveillé, butō theater courses. “In fact, I really feel like I’m in a dance rehearsal. With this role of a young man in his fifties with a body broken prematurely by a work accident, he works towards an “inner destruction”.
Félix-Antoine Boutin’s challenge is the opposite: crossing a long-winded score. Equipped with a microphone, supported by the work of sound environment that the director of Black, he seeks to abandon himself to the present moment. “It is a question of making this word, of a very written orality, as concrete as possible. To try to be as real as possible. It is a beautiful exercise and an everyday job. I can’t rely on yesterday’s rehearsal. Because when it works, it’s a state of presence on stage, in that real world. »
The actor emphasizes that on the contrary, the situation depicted is not realistic, the father not being mute. Why doesn’t he answer? “There is something very impressionistic in this act of telling the life of the father to the father. I think it installs a relationship made of strangeness. And he considers the portrait drawn by his character as a “point of view, not as a truth”.
This son’s soliloquy about his father also serves as a symbol: the mastery of words is the prerogative of the educated class. But even if the paternal character never answers, he is much more than a simple receptacle. “It emits a lot of things,” confirms Faucher. “We quickly realized in rehearsal that it is important for Martin to be present, adds his co-interpreter. Otherwise, we really have a hard time. Because I too react to his body, to his gaze. There really is an exchange. »