The beautiful and long friendship between the writer Fanny Britt and the director Alexia Bürger is at the heart of All things, their first common project which materializes in the theater. The result gives a show as endearing as the relationship that unites the two talented artists.
Posted yesterday at 11:30 a.m.
It’s a little gem of a show offered by Fanny Britt and Alexia Bürger at Quat’Sous these days. A piece on the strength of friendship, which the two women have managed to preserve over the years; despite the doubts and trials of life. But also a piece about the purity of childhood, a state that we should cultivate regardless of our age. The creators also had the idea of All things to overcome a professional heartbreak: their play at the TNM, Lysis, has been canceled due to COVID-19.
Their starting point, besides their friendship, is the film Stand-by-Me, by Rob Reiner, whom they saw as teenagers. Based on a short story by Stephen King, this film follows the journey through the forest of four 12-year-old boys, who have gone in search of a corpse. This initiatory tale remains to this day a moving fable about friendships in childhood and the forced transition to adulthood. The unforgettable performance of River Phoenix and Wil Wheaton, which the text rightly underlines, has a lot to do with it.
In All things, the protagonists, named la Rousse and la Brune, play excerpts from the film, using the strong French accent of the dubbed version. The one that the two girls saw at the cinema of the 2020 University complex… or was it rather in Beta video at home? Their memories do not match here. Like many other things in this very solid, but not simple, friendship: the two friends are a priori very different.
PHOTO BY YANICK MACDONALD, PROVIDED BY LE THREESOUS
Kathleen Fortin is moving, powerful, and Sophie Cadieux is incandescent in the room All things.
Two actresses at the antipodes
The creators have also entrusted the characters to two actresses from the antipodes. Kathleen Fortin (wonderful and moving actress that one never tires of seeing at the theatre) plays Fanny la Rousse; the eternally worried, the anxious, the one who is rooted in her logic. Sophie Cadieux (incandescent, despite her nervousness on opening night) plays Alexia la Brune; the one who is more dark, vulnerable, and who can always count on her friend to get through her turbulent zones.
Alexia Bürger’s staging takes the bias of an assumed theatricality. The majority of the play is performed upstage in front of a heavy red curtain, where images from the film are sometimes projected under shimmering lighting. From then on, we move away from autofiction to approach a theatrical proposal, which takes artistic risks.
The game is often comical and tasty. Sometimes the two friends argue over a yes or a no. But they go over their bad faith to reconcile after the fact. This is also the salt of sincere friendships.
There are also some dramatic monologues, which touch on darker topics, like mental health, depression. Alas, these breaks in tone with the rest of the production are less successful.
sincere friendships
“Because it was him; because it was me”, the director of Quat’Sous, Olivier Kemeid, takes up in his word on the program Montaigne’s famous formula to evoke the close friendship of the moralist writer with La Boétie, five centuries ago. “Because it was her; because it was me”, could repeat Fanny Britt and Alexia Bürger. Because their friendship perfectly illustrates the power of these bonds stronger than anything. Even from the absurdity of the world.
All things
Text: Fanny Britt
Directed by: Alexia Burger
With Sophie Cadieux and Kathleen Fortin
At the Quat’Sous TheaterUntil May 14