“It is the story of a mathematician who, through the formal purity of equations, searches for the overall logic of the world and, thereby, its meaning. » Crystallizing issues that are both historical and eminently contemporary, the destiny of the British Alan Turing (1912-1954) continues to fascinate creators. Since the 1970s, novels, comics, films, plays, operas and musicals have been devoted to this enigmatic man who played a major role in the cryptanalysis of the Enigma machine used by the German armies, but also laid the scientific foundations computer science and artificial intelligence.
Inspired by the play by Hugh Whitemore Breaking the Code (1986), which itself draws on the biography of Andrew Hodges, Alan Turing: The Enigma (1983), on which the film is based The Imitation Game (2014), the Frenchman Benoit Solès wrote The Turing machine, a play with four characters which earned him the Molière for best living French-speaking author in 2019. Adapted for Quebec audiences by Maryse Warda, the text concerns the hero’s torments more than his remarkable achievements. At the Green Curtain, in the space imagined by Francis Farley-Lemieux (scenography), David-Alexandre Chabot (lighting) and William Saumur (video), where each break in tone is carefully accompanied by the music of Antoine Bédard, the The show, directed by Sébastien David, is moving without being pathos, instructive without becoming didactic.
Skillfully linking key episodes in Turing’s life, taking as its core the burglary he had the misfortune to report to the police in 1952, a decision which would have terrible consequences, the play is a vast confession, an address to the public, a portrait which allows a glimpse of the man’s thoughtlessness, his vulnerability, his strangeness, but also his liveliness of mind, his humor, his sensuality. If it is inseparable from the Second World War, Turing’s journey is also blatantly topical. His comments on science and philosophy, on nature and the soul, on the mind and the body, on intelligence and the machine are imbued with astonishing lucidity and undeniable avant-gardism.
In the secondary but essential roles, Gabriel Cloutier Tremblay, Jean-Moïse Martin and Étienne Pilon offer solid interpretations. That said, at the heart of this realistic theatrical object, based on an effective but classic score, shines a true gem: Benoît McGinnis. Embodying all the nuances of the character, alternating between admirable verve and heartbreaking stuttering, expressing the disarming candor with as much accuracy as the fierce conviction, portraying the respected scientist with the same skill as the persecuted homosexual, a man undermined by solitude and secrets, the actor captivates the audience from start to finish.