The reader expecting a “but” after this fulsome praise will not be disappointed. Such freshness and innovation can easily lead to excess and a championing of the radical for its own sake. In adopting this unprecedented method, Flavy the director is condemned to betray Flavy the author — requiring as it does that his company perform a text that is different from the one with which it began. The question arises then why the published version of the play retains a text that the performances have already surpassed? This is all the more incomprehensible when one considers that the printed version debuted only two weeks ago!
Rereading Flavy’s play, certain doubts arose. I am not at all convinced, for instance, that the development of the role of the second prostitute, from page to stage, is dramatically profitable, beyond the obvious erotic return it offers. In addition, I found the noises which can be heard offstage, suggesting the bustling life of a big city, to be a fine idea, but I am not at all certain that it is audible from the second balcony or even beyond the front rows. That said, I wonder whether all those passionate moans are really the best way of communicating the notion that the Republicans are repopulating the Republic.
The roles of the President and Soufissis are taken by different players in Acts II and III, and this little waltz of performance, while barely noticeable, is a fine idea that is nicely carried off. The shock of the play’s parting gesture — an acrobatic leap over the fourth wall — is powerfully transgressive. So too is the final confrontation between the once-inseparable enemies, which also functions on a second leveclass="underline" as a dialogue between those two other inseparable enemies, actor and director (or actor and author). The result is a reflection of our struggle to locate the true seat of power in the theater: the street or the palace, the stage or the director, the players or the script. It’s a shame that all of this is completely invisible in the published version of the play.
I’d like to say a final word about the play’s political message, which was without doubt the finest surprise of the evening. At this moment in our history, when our Republic is finally recovering a certain prosperity after years of such darkness, we have the right as mature and respectable Republicans to a depiction of power and its obligations which is not rendered puerile by the leftist or anarchistic Romanticism for which the largely legendary figure of Théodore Soufissis has too often been the icon. Marcel Flavy has returned from those airy heights, down to earth where we, at this newspaper, welcome him with open arms.
This play is taxing, tiring. I won’t pretend otherwise. But it is these things for good reason, and I see signs in it of a new aesthetic, one that is still in its infancy. The play is not a manifesto, but it does offer a program — and one worth following. I always leave the theater with a migraine, but not always the same one. There is the bad migraine that comes from boredom, but there is also the good migraine, the migraine of open, probing, questioning theater. I hardly need to specify that it was with the latter — and, indeed, one of extraordinary intensity — with which I left the theater on this evening.
I shall conclude, as ever, with the potentially fatal detail — but, in this case, a detail that is, happily, easy to correct. It is possible from time to time to see a white face gazing through the curtain — something that is simply unacceptable on a national stage. Not to mention the rags occasionally falling from the rafters.
Alexandre Botsinas
Yes, the article pleased us all. Flavy postponed his inevitable ideological corrections of Botsinas’s remarks to a later date so as not to lessen our relief or dampen our joy. First and foremost we needed to recover a measure of calm after such a trying experience. We were in something like post-operative shock. Sylvestre Pascal-Bram told us later that when he sat down in front of his dressing room mirror to remove his makeup, he said both to and of himself, “And that bit’s real, right?” Annie Soulemenov told us that she was changing her profession, effective immediately. And the moment he sat down again in that chair of his, now so full of sinister associations, Nicolas Boehlmer burst into tears.
Such depressive and depressing occurrences hardly augur well for a troupe with an additional twenty-five performances ahead of it — not to mention the inevitable tour to follow. Oh, and — I’d almost forgotten — at least four matinee performances for schoolchildren.
When Capelier proposed that we request some security personnel, at least for the next performance, he was immediately shouted down: “No cop sets foot in this theater!” one of us said. “What are we actually risking?” asked another. And at that moment we felt a unanimous warmth — especially intense among the actors — well up for our Usurper, and we all gave voice to it. Even Boehlmer couldn’t tell his dressing-room story without a note of admiration, even something like gratitude, creeping into his voice. (It’s common for victims to develop a curious empathy, even camaraderie, with their captors.)
Eventually, our performances returned more or less to normal, though not without difficulty. It was painful not to be able to retain, not to be able to reproduce, all the wonderful touches of that one ephemeral evening. And it wouldn’t be far from the truth to say that each of us, the moment before making his or her entrance, would have welcomed the opportunity to be captured and confined — put out of commission by a gentleman thief who’d now become the subject of so many dreams and desires. (It bears noting that Pauline isn’t necessarily the most melancholy of our troupe in this regard.)
There is, however, one last question we need to address before closing the book on this case, before I conclude my report: Who was the Usurper? The answer is that we will probably never know. No one has claimed responsibility for his actions. We haven’t filed charges.
But actually, there are hundreds of questions remaining. What would have happened if Pauline hadn’t arrived to deflect matters? Would the Usurper have beaten the tyrant to a pulp? Had he done so, would this have meant that his actions amounted to a political statement? And, if so, would his message have been unambiguous enough to be attributable to a particular movement? Was his invasion not a failure, in the end, given that he ensured the President would have the last word? And why didn’t the Usurper include Act Three in his calculations? Or did he, and Pauline was the glitch in his system? And yet, who’s to say that the Usurper wasn’t just a simple spectator who’d seen our earlier performances, and who had fallen in love with Pauline — a hypothesis supported by the clearly premeditated rose? And yet, if this were the case, why hasn’t he sought her out since? Isn’t it more likely that he was an actor, that he was one of our own? Perhaps he had a grudge to settle with our company. Or maybe he wanted to test us? But if that’s the case — if you’re reading this — come see us! We’ll welcome you with open arms. Perhaps this account might even serve to convince you to come back to us. You presented us with a formidable challenge, and we rose to the occasion. Isn’t that worth something?
But if the Usurper was a man of the theater, someone wishing us ill, someone trying to damage our reputation, to lower our standing at a time when funding has become so scarce and professional discord so rampant, he should have done things very differently — it would have been so easy to simply bring the entire performance to a halt! In short, none of the obvious explanations fit. Every one of them is contradicted by one detail or another.
Jean-François Ernu, however, has advanced a subtler hypothesis: that this fake Soufissis was actually a Soufissis in real life as well — someone who had experienced exactly that sort of violated friendship — not with a President, certainly, but with, say, a cabinet minister, like the one in attendance that very evening, and who, by the way, instead of coming backstage to congratulate us, fled the theater as soon as the show was over. Flavy has tried to find out what Her Honor thought of the performance, but his inquiries were all in vain. No comment.