Twenty years ago, in October 2002, at the invitation of Gilles Renaud, then director of the French section of the National Theater School, I was able to offer a short eulogy to André Brassard when he received this that day the Prix Gascon-Thomas. I was then very nervous to read my text in front of him, anxious to be at the height of the man and the creator. I had then started writing this text several times, without really succeeding in getting the words to match the greatness of his intelligence, his sensitivity and the unequaled impact he had on several generations. of creators.
And so today, when he is leaving us, I return to this text, trying to correct it, refusing to use the imperfect, preferring to keep the present, but knowing that once again the words do not will not sufficiently do justice, nor resurrect him.
It is very difficult to summarize the career of the creator and the importance of his presence in the evolution of theater here. When Brassard appears on the theatrical scene, the profession of director has not yet, I believe, acquired all the letters of nobility that it will allow it to acquire. A new generation of directors then dared to begin to appropriate works from the repertoire with intelligence and panache, but Brassard quickly felt the importance of a word from here occupying the top of our pavement.
From then on and since then, the birth of several creations has passed into the hands of Doctor Brassard. Associated and faithful to the creations of the unique Michel Tremblay, he also brings to the stage several new words for nearly thirty years, while continuing to reread with tact some of the greatest theatrical works, from Racine to Shakespeare, from Beckett to Genet, and so on.
With a constant concern for why we say words and why we do things, abandoning the usual supremacy of how we say and do; it invites, allows and in a certain way, subtly obliges each actor and actor, each designer to become responsible for the meaning to be created. He thus succeeds in empowering each designer who works alongside him. He ignites the troops with whom he creates.
Thanks to all his theatrical and cinematographic achievements, for me as for many others, Brassard has had and still has a considerable influence on the deep reasons that guide us in our research, our work and our desires.
Beyond the illusory brilliance of our profession, Brassard constantly reminds us with force and accuracy of the importance of the discourse to hold, the privilege we have of having a platform to be able to name what frightens us, worries us and delights us. , it reminds us of the power of words and the greatness that is the offering of our souls on a theater stage.
While the real subjects are often obscured by the who, when, where and how, he invites us to seek again and again the what and the why. He revives in all those who meet him the desire to see a light light up in the dark, to see in this glow a body entering it and a voice, a word, a meaning, a communion being born there.
Armband, you are and will remain an igniter of conscience, a revealer of wounds and treasures, a swallower of beauty. Rare are those who here or elsewhere can boast of possessing the aura, the intelligence and the importance granted to the title of master, but in addition to possessing these qualities, you will have taught us the great richness of the multiple questions and the necessary doubt before any answer.
Many theater people, myself included, we often surprise to quote you, to make your words felt ours, stealing your metaphors and your comparisons to express the feeling, the conflict, the dramatic stake. When we borrow these images from you, we do not imitate you, we try to prolong you as if to try to live up to a legacy that a giant leaves us, as if to remember the indescribable privilege of to have discovered by your side the greatness, the passion, the trouble, the doubt, the fervor, the illumination, the crash or the state of grace, the fault or the kick, the fear or the joy, the power and the responsibility human to create art and do theatre.
To all those who have had the privilege and the joy of sitting around the same table as him, I would like to invite them to recall with delight the words of this insatiable researcher, to make the most of the emotional charge that moved it and made it live, and you will then have no choice but to, despite yourself, continue this long call that motivated it: to make each of us a better ourselves tomorrow.
Thanks, Andre.
Thanks also to Alice, Geneviève and Violette for protecting you like Rose, Violette and Mauve protect Marcel.