Tell me what makes you laugh and I’ll tell you who you are. This could have served as a subtitle for the show presented these days by the New Experimental Theater on the Espace libre stage. With LaughterDaniel Brière and Alexis Martin decided to introduce us to “the spirit and humorous climate in which they grew up and learned to laugh at themselves and at the world”.
For this two-hour show, which is both a cabaret and a lecture, the tandem called on seven performers who all made their debut during the pandemic. Zoé Boudou and Fabrice Girard are graduates of the National Theater School. Anne-Sarah Charbonneau and Simon Duchesne, from the National School of Humor. Laurence Laprise and Caroline Somers, from the Professional Theater School at Lionel-Groulx College. As for Mehdi Agnaou, he is, as he says on stage, a graduate of the School of Life.
For this cohort full of talent, Brière and Martin have selected a panoply of comic scenes from the repertoire here and elsewhere, old and recent, which are presented to us in roughly chronological order. With a few accessories and a trunk of costumes, we measure ourselves against Molière, Ionesco, Tardieu. Follows the world of Claude Meunier, Neighbors to Paul and Paul (the famous boxer of Serge Thériault) via La Famille Denuy (“Oh darling, dip your boredom in the water of my pleasure.”). We pay tribute to Clémence DesRochers, the Cynics, Raymond Devos and even Sol and Gobelet. Regarding Anglo-Saxon influences, we cite Monty Python and Saturday Night Live (SNL).
Once again, as the adage goes, too many a hug is a bad hug. Collage is abundant, but it keeps us on the surface. Some scenes lack rhythm or tension, still others end before having convinced us of their relevance. While several tables would have deserved to be conducted more roundly, some, like the extract fromOne word for another of Tardieu, that of Neighbors by Meunier and Saia, or the restaurant sketch “Cheeseburger Cheeseburger” from SNL, are bursting with laughter. On the night of the premiere, thanks to the hilarious Simon Duchesne and Fabrice Girard, the improvisation at the very end was also very successful.
Diversified, the panorama allows us to appreciate several comic registers: gestures, words, situation, character and repetition, but also the comic of manners, the absurd and social satire. Born in 1963 and 1964 respectively, Daniel Brière and Alexis Martin offer a glimpse of the comic foundations of their generation with this show. After this first part, somewhat historic, the second, which will be presented in spring 2025, will allow the performers, who will then sign the text and the direction, to explain what makes them laugh. This will be an opportunity to measure the necessarily revealing gap between the humor of baby boomers and that of millennials.