Review of The Last Tape | Farewell to the master

He was his student at the National Theater School and shared several conversations and creative projects with him. Olivier Choinière decided to make the late director André Brassard the central character of his most recent play, The last tape. A daring spectacle, but one that struggles to touch those who did not know the man during his lifetime.

Olivier Choinière, who writes the text and direction here, chose Violette Chauveau to play AB, a brilliant director stuck in a body that has not obeyed him for too long. Disabled and alone, the 75-year-old man has lost his mobility, but not his sharp mind.

From the outset, it must be emphasized: Violette Chauveau is phenomenal. She touches the sublime with her interpretation of this character capable of combining the sacred and the trivial in a single sentence.

In an oversized, clownish costume by Elen Ewing, the actress is unrecognizable. The night of the premiere, in a room full of people from the industry, every gesture made, every swear word muttered provoked tender laughter. Violette Chauveau has dissolved into the filthy clothes of her character, to the point that we are almost surprised to find her, with her eternal youth and her mischievous look, when the curtain falls.

Olivier Choinière may have repeated that his AB was a fictional character, but the similarities with Brassard are far from fortuitous. He is indeed the director of Sisters-in-law which haunts the scene at Quat’Sous, amid mounds of cigarette butts and empty Coke cans. The stifling decor that looks like it was made of ashes, imagined by Simon Guilbault, constitutes another strong point of this show.

For the initiated

But, there is a but. The lack of rhythm and certain clumsiness in the staging (notably when the character questions the audience in vain) weigh down the whole thing. The preamble, during which we sense all the solitude of the character, stretches unduly; we have to wait a long time before AB takes out a cassette tape recorder from his clutter to tell on tape (and to the present audience) his vision of society, of old age, but first and foremost, of his art.

Because even if theater remains AB’s great love, he continues to question the relevance of the thing from the depths of his wheelchair. Why burn with all one’s being for an ephemeral art written in sand that the slightest tide can carry away?

Listening to him recite Racine while perched on the toilet seat, however, we feel that the theater still helps him to stay alive. Despite everything else.

However, it is when he shares his inner dialogue out loud that the character of AB becomes the most interesting, the most touching. The rest – notably the very strong Beckettian approach that Olivier Choinière wanted to give to the show – is just icing on the cake, to use a metaphor dear to Brassard.

This fire that smoldered in AB’s belly could ignite all the spectators, who ask nothing better than to be moved, enlightened, transported. Unfortunately, we feel that the exercise is aimed more at the initiated: those who knew Brassard or those who practice this demanding art.

Others will feel abandoned at times. Despite this performance from Violette Chauveau to be marked with a white stone.

The last tape

Text and direction by Olivier Choinière With Violette Chauveau

At the Quat’Sous TheaterUntil September 30

7/10