Michelin by Michel-Maxime Legault | Love is in the meadow

Michel-Maxime Legault opens the season at the Théâtre Denise-Pelletier with Michelina solo show directed by Marie-Thérèse Fortin, about her journey from the countryside to the city; and from the farm to the Conservatory. The Press met the artist at his parents’ house in Saint-Polycarpe.

“The schizophrenic sister who had all her wits about her”; “the brother full of jealousy”; or even “the sister who judges the family with her eyes”. This is how Michel-Maxime Legault speaks of his siblings in his autobiographical play Michelin.

Seeing yourself described like this in a published novel would break up some families… Not Michel-Maxime’s! “We are a bit of all that and something else in a family. We can all, one day or another, take on a different category or role, depending on the periods of our lives,” explains the author, in an interview at the Legault farm.

Around the age of 40, during the pandemic, the actor decided to write about his colorful family, and to express what he thinks of them. “Without hypocrisy.” “In the play, I address our connections as much as our differences, our agreements as our disagreements,” he says.

What a family!

Michel-Maxime Legault is the baby of seven children. And the only guy who didn’t follow his father’s path.

Even as a child, little Michel is funny and… hypersensitive. He gives the cows on the farm the names of actresses. When an animal dies, he cries bitterly. Something that any good farmer’s son avoids doing…

Michel-Maxime Legault was also a little ashamed of this farming clan. Not educated or cultured enough. At the Legaults’ during the holidays, we ate KFC chicken and jujubes, in a rustic house. While at Christmas Eve, the rich and Outremontese family of his ex-buddy served exquisite food and fine wines, in a magazine setting.

Is there a parallel between the story of Michelin and the essay by Jean-Philippe Pleau, Duplessis Street ? “I don’t consider myself a class defector. The family business makes money. We never lacked anything. However, I come, like Pleau, from a family where art was ignored. Sometimes, I don’t feel erudite enough in the world of theater. But at the same time, there are so many other things that I inherited from my parents: perseverance, resourcefulness, humanity, etc.”

Before creating the show, Michel-Maxime Legault did not suspect that the best part of his adventure was not the success of Michelinbut human encounters. “I play for 75 minutes, then I stay in the room to listen to people after each show. Sometimes for three hours!”

“At the beginning of the project, there was a desire, with the team, to bring culture to the back ranks of Quebec,” explains the author who co-produced Michelin with his company La Marée Haute, the Théâtre du Tandem, the Trident and the Grand Théâtre de Québec. Because he believes that we need to review our production methods to make theatre travel throughout the province. “We created the show in Moffet, a village of 200 inhabitants. Then, I played in La Motte, Saint-Edmond and in several venues in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, before going to Québec. The regional audience reacts differently than in the city. In Moffet, (almost) the entire village was there and when I told the spectators to turn off their phones before the show… they said to me: ‟but why?!” (laughs)

A Christmas memory

In the middle of the conversation, Micheline Martel and Yvon Legault, very proud to see a journalist interviewing their baby, come to offer us donuts and coffee.

“Like when my brother talks to me about his tractors… I fall asleep! My parents have already seen me play a llama at the Conservatory. They wondered if my studies were a good investment…”, he says with a laugh.

At the end of the interview, before going to join his parents, Michel-Maxime confided in us… with tears in his eyes. “One Christmas, I was sad. I was spending New Year’s Eve in Saint-Polycarpe, without my boyfriend. I would have liked to be somewhere else! Then, my father came to see me and said: “My son, we will always be there for you.” And that touched me so much!”

“We often try to be someone else in life. But I realize how beautiful and bright my family is! I don’t have to look elsewhere for what I already have here. I can finally take my place.”

Visit the play’s page at the Théâtre Denise-Pelletier

Visit the play’s website

Michelin

By and with Michel-Maxime Legault

Directed by Marie-Thérèse FortinAt the Fred-Barry hall, from August 28 to September 21
Then in Repentigny on October 4 and on tour in several cities in Quebec in 2025