After Solo 70, a show presented at the Festival TransAmériques in 2018, Étienne Pilon wanted to collaborate again with Paul-André Fortier. From this desire was born The arcana, the feverish monologue that the actor is currently delivering in the intimate room of the Prospero theater on the occasion of the International Literature Festival. For his very first production, the experienced choreographer asked the writer Tristan Malavoy to offer him his first text intended for the theater.
The one who speaks is called Fred. A computer programmer, he seems engaged, not to say entangled, in a routine. At night, memories prevent him from falling asleep, snippets of childhood emerge, starting with this ribald refrain that his grandfather sang to him. “Did you know whore Nancy?” Who gave the whole infantry the pox? » What goes back in time, ventures into the mysteries of memory and is superimposed on the present, is first and foremost the terror of the soldiers in the trenches of the Second World War. “I hear so many things when you uncover in me the memory of distant wars. » Malavoy continues to explore here themes that are dear to him, notably combat and filiation.
Captivating representation of the twists and turns of memory, of the very particular way in which memories are inscribed in us, cross generations to insinuate themselves into our daily lives; this solo is a piece of goldsmith’s work, an implacable battlefield, an object of telluric beauty where nothing stands out and nothing is left to chance. Cleverly perforated, the score, which has just appeared in the Quai n collectiono 5 from Éditions XYZ, is an assembly of distinct registers.
It is an introspection with collective resonances, a resurgence which concerns our immediate future, a vibrant incarnation of the eternal battle between grace and horror. “How does love struggle in all of this? What taste does it leave on the tongue when everything around smells of burning and the foot placed on the sand recalls in battle the castles, the decisive games, the fuss, the cry of naked children and this slow dance in silence in the evening fire ? »
The body of the text by Fortier is just as rigorous as it is polysemous, both military and poetic. Certain verses, repeated in a loop, at high speed, acquire an impressive sonic charge. To respond to the words, we can count on the discreet movement of a hand or even on the ostentatious and jerky movement of a head which seems to be fighting a terrible internal enemy. Filling the entire space delicately lit by Lucie Bazzo, spinning like a planet in orbit, a consuming star, a man desperately seeking reconciliation, Pilon seems moved by words, not to say possessed by them.