For years, Pierre Bernard stayed away from directing, preferring artistic direction, which fits better with the shyness of his personality. But there. The former artistic director of Quat’Sous (who also staged around fifteen plays and shows) decided to reconnect with the rehearsal room to set up Star trailsa play he had already presented in the early 1990s.
By his own admission, there was only this precise text to bring him out of his well-assumed retirement from directing. However, when Denise Filiatrault, artistic director of the Rideau Vert, offered him the project on a silver platter, he could not refuse.
This writing, this humor, this regard for the other shown by Cindy Lou Johnson… I suddenly found everything I loved about this text! The playwright has found the concrete words to speak of an immaterial state, which is that of inner wandering. She enters her characters with such accuracy…
Peter Bernard
“This fable” that is Star trails recounts the improbable encounter between two adrift characters. Rosannah Deluce is totally cut off from others, but also from herself; it floats between two waters. Henry Harry, for his part, chose to live as a hermit in the depths of Alaska, where the cold can seize you and kill you. Fate will bring them together in amazing circumstances that we will not name here.
“This piece speaks like no other about the need for human connection and a possible repair through the presence of the other,” says Mylène Mackay, who plays the female character in this radiant duo. Maxim Gaudette will be his counterpart. The latter also replaced at short notice – just three weeks before the premiere – the actor Émile Schneider, who had to withdraw from the project for health reasons.
For Peter Bernard, Star trails remains the proof made of ink and paper that humans can be reborn from their ashes. “Rebirth comes through the way the other looks at you. The character of Rosannah says it very well: I need only one person, one in 8 billion, to reconnect me to this earth…”
A 15-year-old partnership
Mylène Mackay and Pierre Bernard share a bond that dates back to well before the start of rehearsals for this production. The actress says: “Pierre was my first teacher at the National Theater School. And for our first exercise, he made us discover Star trails. It was a shock! This piece, I really experienced it from the inside. »
She continues: “Since then, Pierre and I have remained very close. I talk to him almost every month. We all need someone who really sees us and believes in us. For me, that person is Pierre. If he tells me that I am capable of doing something, I believe him, because he is always right! »
Her former teacher takes the leap: “A long time ago, I told Mylène that she could one day play Star trails. She is the bearer of such an emotional hearth… She can play this text in all its truth, despite the breaks in tone which follow one another every three seconds! »
Pierre Bernard had planned to hold auditions to find his Rosannah, but the pandemic prevented him from doing so. He therefore offered this role to Mylène Mackay. Her reaction? “I was happy, but at the same time, I measured the magnitude of the challenge. This character takes so much breath! The text is an incessant ping-pong between the two protagonists. »
Admittedly, time has passed since Pierre Bernard set up Star trails for the first time, with Sylvie Drapeau and Luc Picard as interpreters, in 1992. “Life has passed through me, but I still remain just as feverish and intuitive. »
It is useless, he adds, to try to compare the spectacle of yesteryear with that of today. The humans who wear it are different. Period. “I have in front of me two uppercase interpreters who react in their own way. All I want is for the spectators to be able to meet these characters, to let themselves go with them. I want to move them, to touch their soul. Afterwards, my career as a director will be well and truly over…”
Star trails is presented at the Rideau Vert from May 9 to June 19.