Louvre Museum, opposite Mona Lisa, the famous Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci ... With the complicity of a guardian, the young Lisa is used to closing and giving herself regular face-to-face meetings with the world icon. Her brother Leo is never far away. They lost their parents. And if Lisa seems to have found her way, Leo is looking for herself.
A situation that Mona Lisa seems to have felt, since she manifests herself to one, then to the other and invites them to join her in her painting. And to follow it. Here they go for the year 1495 and the Renaissance engineering workshop…
To evoke Da Vinci and make him discover, a little more, to young audiences, Estelle Andrea - who plays Lisa and signs the text and the music - imagined this funny time travel to meet the artist and scientist at insatiable thirst for knowledge. She paints him as welcoming and benevolent, empathetic who will take under her wing her singular young people who are said to have come from France.
Happy initiatory quest
Obviously, the meeting plays on the anachronisms, often funny, but there are also between these kids of the future and genius (baritone Julien Clément) points of convergence, common cracks. When the latter opens his heart, the age gap - half a millennium anyway! - is no longer in progress, the injured understand each other.
A guitar, often - that of Oscar Clark, who plays Leo and signs the arrangements - and a violin, at times - that of Magali Paliès (Mona Lisa) - accompany the actors and singers, mostly lyric. False tunes by Véronique Sanson or Bernard Lavilliers, more baroque melodies, rap too, these four very engaging characters sing and enchant.
The palm goes to the Mona Lisa. We love the character as written and as embodied by Magali Paliès who makes her a whimsical and fearless feminist. She is hilarious to test the maestro's inventions, to dance rap - in her own way - or to display her moods and her deep boredom in front of the herds of tourists.
Details of paintings and sketches, sketches of inventions, Chinese shadows, in his staging, William Mesguich relies on numerous animated and evolving projections. He elegantly dresses and organizes the journey that the public takes. Musical theater of very fine craftsmanship with moments of pure comedy and a reflection on knowledge and life, "In the footsteps of Leonardo da Vinci" is a pretty and joyful initiatory quest that we follow like a reverie, sweet, crazy and funny.
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EDITOR'S NOTE: 4/5
"In the footsteps of Leonardo da Vinci" , Compagnie Coïncidences Vocales, until March 15 at Espace Paris-Plaine (15th). Wednesdays, Saturdays, Sundays at 3 p.m. From 6 to 10 euros (01.40.43.01.82). At the Luxembourg theater in Meaux (77) on March 21 at 3 p.m. And this summer in Avignon.
