Michel! | In the burlesque universe of Michel Courtemanche

A show that draws on the comic repertoire of actor and mime Michel Courtemanche is about to hatch. The Press was able to see four excerpts from this multidisciplinary work without words created by Daniel Brière and bringing together on stage seven artists… trained by Michel Courtemanche.

In the background, a large canvas depicts a desert landscape with cacti, a cowboy appears surrounded by his acolytes… disguised as babies (!). They all advance on horseback (imaginary, of course). The cowboy (played by Clément Chaboche) dismounts, enters a saloon, speaks in the fantastic gibberish invented by Michel, gets into a fight with a customer, who offers him a duel…

We recognize the broad outlines of the scenario of the Westerncreated by Michel Courtemanche, but especially his facial expressions. Except that in the original script, Michel played an obese person sitting in front of his television, who zapped from one channel to another until he came across this western. He also amused himself by watching the same scenes again by pressing the Rewind or Fast Forward buttons.

“Today, we couldn’t recreate this character,” laughs Michel Courtemanche, who played all the characters. “I would be called fatphobic.”

The zapper is represented here by another artist, Alex Trahan, who embodies Michel Courtemanche when he was young. The creator of Michael! Daniel Brière explains: “We wanted to represent young Michel, this child who was different from the others, who took refuge in his imagination and who wanted to make others laugh. So he is represented on stage.”

And what was this young Michel like when he became the adult Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton of Quebec?

“When I was young, I was a very unruly boy,” Michel Courtemanche tells us. “I remember that my 5th grade teacher^e year told me that every Friday I could go to the front of the class and entertain people, but that I only had that much time.

“The fact remains that I had difficulty learning because of many things [il a reçu un diagnostic tardif de bipolarité]continues Michel Courtemanche, but it allowed me to develop, despite the fact that I was still a shy child. It was by making people laugh that I got rid of my shyness. And my childhood was immersed in mime, cartoons, comics, so it’s a bit of all these influences that we see in this show.”

Among the three other excerpts presented, we also recognize the famous number of Photo boothwhere after depositing his coins, Michel Courtemanche settles into the booth and waits for the photos to be taken. Obviously, the system triggers the photo shoot at the worst possible times… It is Annick Prémont who plays the main character in this excerpt which, Daniel Brière tells us, will take place on the moon…

There is also the number of Childbirthmagnificently performed by Philippe Thibaudeau, who pretends to get into a car to accompany his wife to the hospital because she is due to give birth. Unlike the original number, this one ends with the father looking at his newborn and whispering his name: Michel. A way of illustrating the birth of Michel Courtemanche.

In truth, the idea of ​​a show with several Michels goes back 30 years, Michel Courtemanche tells us.

“I was tired of touring, I wanted to train people, a bit like Blue Man Group does, for example, with replacement staff, but I had abandoned the idea because the research was too tedious. But it’s Sylvain [Parent-Bédard, PDG de ComediHa!]which relaunched me before the pandemic, and I accepted.

Sylvain Parent-Bédard, who had seen the acrobatic piece Leocreated and directed by Daniel Brière – and which has been presented several times at the Edinburgh Festival –, wanted to pair the two artists, who already knew each other, having notably worked together on Camera Cafe, to bring to life Michael!.

Daniel Brière wanted to “tell the story of Michel” and make it a show that was at once “comic, performative and poetic”.

“I had read his biography [Face à faces, parue en 2018]I knew him, I knew the difficulties he had gone through, and I told myself that it was a universal story, which could be told simply, without words. Because we immediately understand a person who is different from others, who is excluded.

For Michel Courtemanche, this show shows first and foremost how he became accepted. Michael! “It tells the story of how I got accepted in life,” he emphasizes.

We remember that the abrupt end of Michel Courtemanche’s career in 1997 – as a performer – after only three shows, left a big void in the cultural landscape; his comic performances drawing on mime and theater were quite unique. He of course continued his artistic career as a producer, director, and even occasionally as an actor, but never by returning to the stage as a mime-performer.

In 2016, however, he returned to the stage as part of a comedy gala at the ComediHa! festival in Quebec, just long enough to repeat his famous number from Drummer – which we will see in a version with seven performers. But stage fright was never far away.

I think I’ve never been as nervous as that night. Especially since the sound went out when I got on stage, my worst nightmare happened…

Michel Courtemanche

By training young performers on Michael!is he tempted to go back on stage today? “No,” Michel Courtemanche answers categorically. “Even if I have cured my stage fright, I am neither interested in going back on stage here nor in going back on tour with my suitcase. I did it. It’s over.”

Michael! will be presented at the Diamant de Québec starting July 31 before starting a Quebec tour until December. It will stop in Montreal from October 24 to 26. Next year, Sylvain Parent-Bédard confirmed to us that the show will be presented at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and that performances will also take place in France. A Canadian tour is also planned.

Check out the tour details of Michael!