They stand, facing the audience, and introduce themselves.
This is Lucas, originally from the Comoros and who was adopted.
Her name is Jeanne, born in Toulouse (Haute-Garonne) to Malian parents.
Her neighbor is Yasmine, who was born in Brittany to a Moroccan mother and an Algerian father.
There is also Arun, from India, and Ali, from Syria, who only speak English.
And then… “Issa”, we whisper to him.
He forgot his name and where he came from.
He is from Eritrea according to his passport.
He is the hero of “Passeport”, the new play by Alexis Michalik, created this Friday at the Théâtre de la Renaissance, in Paris (10th).
We meet him one night, unconscious on the ground in the jungle of Calais.
He was attacked.
He regains consciousness in the hospital, having completely lost his memory.
He was nevertheless sent back to the camp.
With the two friends he makes there, Arun and Ali, the sunny and the shady, they form a trio that we will follow from the Calais jungle to Poitou, then to Paris, where he will try to build a future for yourself.
Also read: Alexis Michalik or the art of popular theater: behind the scenes of “Passport” rehearsals
At the same time, we discover Lucas, the son of a soldier.
He grew up in Calais and returns there with his company.
He is a policeman.
His mission: to search the trucks leaving for England and flush out the migrants who may have been hiding there.
He looks at the jungle from afar, knows nothing about it, the police don't get involved.
Adopted, Lucas comes from an island about which he knows nothing, his parents being tight-lipped.
Authoritarian, his father even has racist tendencies... In a conflict of loyalties, Lucas says nothing.
He seems lost, wondering who he is...
The Michalik recipe
Two men, two trajectories and two points of view on a very topical subject, immigration.
After prison in “Intra Muros”, the PMA and the homosexual couples in “A Love Story”, an assumed melodrama, Michalik does not leave reality and engages in an even more political terrain, that of refugees and 'identify.
He does it in his own way, as a storyteller, the one we love to see weaving different threads to form a single frame.
On the board, there is a Michalik recipe, markers, know-how that we find.
It's rhythmic, fluid, the actors move from one role to another, from one place to another in a shift of light, a shift of props or sets.
Fixed, a large gray plaster wall rises at the back of the stage.
It serves as a screen for some projections, a novelty for him which brings, in touches, a renewed sense of realism.
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In the center, a large opening lets through at times a sort of container on wheels which will serve as a studio or a gendarmerie truck or a train.
From the courtyard and garden, tables and kitchen pianos, shelves of books roll up to the center to represent the places in a well-ordered ballet, to which is combined that of the costumes and accents with which the actors - this distribution is sublime — juggle with apparent ease.
Modern tale
In the midst of this permanent revolution, Issa seems a landmark, a gentle and temperate character around whom Michalik builds his story.
He repeats it throughout interviews, the driving force of his pieces is empathy.
Put yourself in the other's place.
This is what he still offers us with this key character, vulnerable and resilient.
The powerful story of his journey to France grabs us in the gut, the climax of a well-crafted story.
A story that appears for what it is, a pretext to evoke refugees and immigration with which France was also built.
Not all pretexts are good, they say, but this one is and we are immediately on board.
We will also say that the story is beautiful, too beautiful perhaps.
Yes, like a tale after all.
A modern tale of facts.
And, in fact, we agree.
Once again the magic happens.
Editor's note:
4/5
" Passport ",
play by Alexis Michalik, with Christopher Bayemi, Patrick Blandin, Jean-Louis Garçon, Kevin Razy, Fayçal Safi, Manda Touré, Ysmahane Yaqini.
At the Théâtre de la Renaissance, 20, Bd Saint-Martin in Paris (10th), Tuesday to Saturday at 9 p.m., matinees on Saturdays and Sundays at 4:30 p.m. and 5 p.m.
From 12 to 60 euros.