The versatile author and actor Maxime Brillon denounces the greed of show ticket promoters in his play Tony sells tickets.
Sometimes, fiction can serve as a horizon to contemplate the vertigo of humanity. Two years before the pandemic, when he worked in ticket offices, Maxime Brillon wrote We will wax our digital cannons in a Portuguese sweatshop. A dystopia in which a group of teenagers apprehend the collapse of the technological age. Four years later, the graduate of the 2016 cohort of Option-Théâtre from Lionel-Groulx College looks back on his experience behind the sales counter for his text Tony sells tickets.
Subtitled “A comedy for counter clerks and their singing printers”, this short 45-minute play is directed by Marie-Ève Groulx. She takes the poster this week behind the scenes of Duceppe, in formula 5 to 7, with Justin Laramée, Joanie Martel, Fabiola Nyrva Aladin and Dominick Rustam.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Maxime Brillon
The author was inspired by an ex-colleague and manager at work. “A certain Tony; is that his real name, perhaps? “, he says, enigmatic. The character will be played by three different performers. More than a colleague, Tony was “a big brother, a parent, a mentor, a comrade and a teacher”, he says. “He’s also a guy who always has incredible projects and stories! And endowed with great emotional intelligence, with a geek side, like me”, sums up the young author, also a fan of video games and computer coding.
The ticket monopoly
Tony sells tickets describes the greed of the world of ticket promoters, “half-entrepreneurs, half-rock stars”, who only run on profits. And don’t care about the artists or the public. “You have to see them get excited at the idea of lowering and raising prices, according to demand, like brokers on the stock market”, illustrates Maxime Brillon.
The piece therefore criticizes the monopoly situation of a company like Ticketmaster which, since its merger with the promoter of shows Live Nation, has been a hit in the industry. The author names them in his text: “Ticketfaster and Live Ovation”.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Maxime Brillon
Tony literally says that artists get “stuffed”! It’s not new. Every 10, 15 years there is a scandal about the ticket office. The promoters collect all the money and the artists get screwed. The independent sales networks close down or are taken over by the big competitor.
Maxime Brillon, author and actor
human sacrifice
However, the play’s message is elsewhere. In the human sacrifice behind the big machine, the pressure we put on ourselves to be ever more efficient, under the pretext of progress. “They want us to forget that technology is an extension of our brain,” says Brillon. Any system – computer, bureaucratic, electronic – is organized so that we cannot see the humans behind the machine. If the human stops feeding the machine, the machine collapses. And it’s no longer useful. »
Maxime Brillon remembers a show canceled with 48 hours notice, because a rapper had been arrested at customs for a drug case. “The teller is like a first responder. Everyone calls us. Everyone is angry. And we can’t even reimburse people, because the concert is postponed to an… indefinite date. »
What is the moral to be drawn from his play? “Machines like people are imperfect. Better to accept our imperfections,” he says.