On the margins of the text, by David Goudreault | Celebration of the word

There is no more beautiful job than keeping your word, Sylvain Lelièvre sang. David Goudreault wears his high in his show Alongside the textfunny, sensitive, but unequal profession of faith towards literature.

We have already seen the Théâtre Maisonneuve filled to the brim to hear poems by Gaston Miron. It was not a night of thematic poetry, but a show built around the albums Twelve men scavenged with big names like Louis-Jean Cormier, Richard Séguin and Vincent Vallières. The song, sometimes, carries the torch of poetry high.

But seeing this room of nearly 1,500 seats filled to hear someone say without singing – or slamming – literary texts? We don’t remember it. There is Fred Pellerin who has been attracting crowds by taking the bull with tales for a long time, but a man of letters who recites his poems? Who resurrects those of Anne Hébert and her little cousin Saint-Denys Garneau? Who quotes Réjean Ducharme? Nope…

That David Goudreault is on the bill at the Théâtre Maisonneuve is already an achievement. The fact that there were two evenings this week and that he will return in the fall (an additional one will be announced for October 23) becomes almost phenomenal.

Reading stories

Alongside the text takes a step back if we start from the first literary show of the novelist-slammer-poet. After recounting his beginnings as a writer in At the tip of your tongue, here he talks about his journey as a reader. Becoming one was, he says, an accident.

This is not a figure of speech: as a child, David Goudreault was “run over” by a car. It was during his long convalescence that he took up reading.

And that he developed a taste for it to the point of immersing himself in books for several hours a day, nourishing his dreary daily life and discovering the superpowers of his own imagination.

A spectacle as abundant asAlongside the text does not tell. Above all, he listens to himself. To welcome the resonance ofAccompaniement, famous poem by Saint-Denys Garneau. To rediscover the poetry of Anne Hébert. To marvel at the first lines of The swallowing of swallows by Ducharme. To laugh, too, at the nullity of the novels in the Frissons collection that David Goudreault read too much as a teenager or at the slides towards erotic writings…

The poet-performer is a good speaker of text. His relaxed approach lacks neither warmth nor charisma. This guy has given hundreds of lectures to schools and someone who can hold the attention of a teenage audience with verse can appeal to any other audience. David Goudreault therefore had no trouble captivating the Théâtre Maisonneuve, who sighed and laughed, almost always where he had expected.

Zones of freedom to tame

Alongside the text is indeed a very written show. We also felt that the artist was still very limited in his staging. He knows his bearings, but is still taming his areas of freedom. Sentences written to interact with the audience still sound too written, in fact. We immediately see the difference when he steps outside the established framework and reacts spontaneously. Which suits him better.

The least convincing aspect of the show is the big gap it constantly makes between poetic flights of fancy and jokes worthy of a comedy show.

David Goudreault embraces this hybridity and also settles some scores with the purists who do not find him literary enough – a useless gesture given his success. However, by wanting to entertain too much and putting oneself too much in front of the text, it sometimes prevents poetry from shining.

This was the case, in particular, when he said My Olivine, a very carnal declaration of love that Claude Gauvreau wrote in his invented language, Exploréan. By carrying it to the middle of the floor, dedicating it to a spectator, he erased its resonance. The sensuality of this text lies in its sound staging. Who got lost in that moment, leaving only an impression of strangeness.

Alongside the text succeeds in making the literary word heard and, let us insist, this is a feat in itself. However, he fails to raise its poetic value. Is there a lack of silence? Is there a lack of wordless musical interludes? Is there a lack of erasure of the performer behind the words? A bit of all that. Perhaps these are just calibration faults, which can be easily adjusted in what we call the living arts.

On tour throughout the province starting March 13.