It was several months ago, before the big uproar and the sad death of singer Karl Tremblay. When the director Sébastien Soldevila, of the 7 Fingers of the Hand, proposed to the Cowboys Fringants to create a work of song, dance and circus based on their repertoire, the guitarist and composer Jean-François Pauzé raised an eyebrow doubtful. Months later, the two men have become accomplices and speak with one voice to defend what was born from their meeting, the musical Royal Pub. The ambitious show takes off Wednesday evening at the Grand Théâtre de Québec in an emotional context — at the time these lines were written, the production was still taking the hit.
The project is ambitious, therefore, because the whole thing is an original creation, carried by no less than seven actor-singers, seven dancers and six circus artists. Royal Pub will also include five new songs composed for the occasion by Pauzé. And it will all take place behind closed doors.
Sébastien Soldevila has a good track record in this area, but setting up all these variables still required some work. Big job. If only to sort through the 150 or so Cowboys Fringants songs and make sense of them. “But we agree that the most important thing in this business is the story,” he says.
This is particularly what convinced Jean-François Pauzé to give the green light to the project, with carte blanche for everything that was not musical. The two men, met last week, nevertheless remain discreet about the essence of the story, which reserves certain ” twists important,” explains the director. But we know the starting premise: a man who has a problem with his car enters the only establishment in the area, the Royal pub.
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“In fact, it’s a parable of life,” says Mr. Soldevila. In the sense that we are talking about this average man, whose name is Jonathan Doyé [joué par Richard Charest], who arrives in this bar and he will see his life transformed. It’s written almost like a story, a fable, a farce. This means that there is a very surreal side, but which is anchored in reality, which is close to the universe of the Cowboys. »
This universe, he summarizes, is often composed of joyful tunes, but “quite hard” lyrics, as on the title Of a sadness, which is part of the show and where the chorus says: “The world is sad and humans are unhappy / Behind the beautiful filters, no, people are not happy. »
The protagonist will therefore spend the show with the people seated at the bar – and who are therefore interpreted by the twenty craftsmen of Royal Pub — “without really understanding why he is there. And, little by little, he will discover it,” reveals Mr. Soldevila.
The drinking establishment at the heart of the story is owned by the character of Siriso, played by Kevin Houle, but is run by the manager Loulou Lapierre (Émilie Josset), a character from the imagination of the Repentigny team, just like La Catherine , a waitress played by Alexia Gourd. Yvan Pedneault, Martin Giroux and Christian Laporte complete the group of performers-actors.
There will be movement on stage during this show nourished by the work of Olivier Kemeid in the dialogues and the talent of choreographer Geneviève Dorion-Coupal. “I wanted things that clicked because their music [celle des Cowboys Fringants], it slams,” summarizes Sébastien Soldevila. The latter believes that the vehicle chosen to carry this story is the right one, and that “nothing is superfluous”. “What’s interesting about medical comedies is the tools we have to express specific moments in the story. There, I have acrobatics, theater, circus, sung music live… So it’s this panoply that gives a narrative that is varied,” he adds.
Composer Jean-François Pauzé put his all into the musical aspect of the project. He refused certain song choices, among others. “You do good deals in life, you do bad ones, I wanted that to be songs that I like,” he explains.
The guitarist also made concession and adaptation rhyme. In particular, he agreed to integrate a hated piece from the Cowboys Fringants repertoire by “reworking the verse that had bothered me for several years”. “I patched together something that works now. It’s like a painter who removes a tree from his painting after the fact because it was ugly. »
A large part of his contribution was the creation of five new pieces, some of which serve “to seal, to cement” the story and the universe of Royal Pub. “Because, maybe, the songs that we chose from the existing repertoire have their individuality, and to make a story that holds together with songs that, basically, have no coherence together, that’s was complicated,” illustrates Jean-François Pauzé. He specifies that “the dialogues were not written based on what was happening to the characters in the existing songs”.
Royal Pub will therefore be presented on stage first at the Grand Théâtre de Québec, from November 22 to 26, before traveling to Place des Arts in Montreal, from December 6 to January 6. The musical will be presented this summer in Trois-Rivières and Sherbrooke, but also in Paris in April, for five performances at the Grand Rex. Everywhere, one imagines, the shadow of singer Karl Tremblay will hover.
“We are going to return to Europe,” says Mr. Soldevila. We’re going to go to Belgium, to Switzerland, we’re going to return to France, we’re going to return to Paris, to Lyon, to Marseille, that’s for sure. »