It is difficult to completely dissociate oneself from the band of clowns, sporting red noses and jumpsuits with collars, who parade on the stage of the Théâtre de Quat’Sous, under the leadership of its new co-artistic and general director, Catherine Vidal. There is no doubt that this was the bet taken by the playwright Étienne Lepage, a long-time accomplice of the director, who offers a work in several sketches. Black humor rubs shoulders with satire and the absurd, even “philosophical self-mockery”, to use an expression from the text, in order to send us a portrait of the human being that is certainly amusing, but not very flattering.
This assortment of paintings includes some exquisite pearls of lucidity and uninhibited abjection. Although these defects are tragically true, their exposure is no less delightful. Consider the double-talking civil servant (a convincing Chantal Dupuis), who swears that she considers a public health problem in a school a priority when she couldn’t care less. Or the father (the ineffable Luc Bourgeois) who suggests to his 18-year-old son that he give up his education savings to buy the old car he wants to pass on to him.
Let us also mention the story featuring Didier Lucien (magnificent in its truthfulness), whose character short-circuits an ambitious project (“This is not a pitch sales pitch, he will say about the presentation he is about to make, it is the march of history!”) because he cannot tame the contempt he feels for the man with whom he must negotiate. The latter’s thin voice as well as his disadvantageous physique trigger in the protagonist the irrepressible urge, inscribed in universal human genetics, he believes, to mock him.
Other parts of the show seem less accomplished, despite interesting premises. For example, the final scene, where the arrogance of the character played by Renaud Lacelle-Bourdon rivals his falseness. Wounded in the forest, he must try to hide his arrogance in order to exploit his companions, to put them at the service of his egocentrism rather than letting them abandon him to his fate. This last chapter, turning more or less in vain, is not the most convincing.
If the themes of the sketches know how to renew themselves and register, each in their own way, in a fresco on the absence of nobility of the human soul, several of these paintings end up running out of steam along the way. The brilliance of the ideas, the biting acuity of the soliloquies are diluted and lose their effectiveness. The fact remains that Too Humanthrough its unifying momentum and its meaningful message, as well as its formal irreverence, bodes rather well, despite its flaws, with regard to the new artistic direction of the establishment, which Vidal shares with Xavier Inchauspé.
Moreover, this anthology of shameless behaviors and confidences is served by a multigenerational cast impeccably directed by the director. A realistic interpretation approach has generally been favored, despite the fanciful (and significant!) aesthetic bias that she has embraced. The clown costumes in shimmering colors and varied textures designed by Wendy Kim Pires, completed by the beautifully iridescent makeup of Vivienne Angélique and highlighted by the rich lighting of Alexandre Pilon-Guay, contrast with the plausibility of the speeches given — although they are resolutely free of self-censorship. All of this leads us to this undeniable observation: burdened by our absurd obsessions, our shaky mental and moral schemes, we are, deep down, nothing more than laughable buffoons.