It's not easy to take up the torch from Robin Williams, alias John Keating, professor of English literature in the film "The Circle of Disappeared Poets", released in 1989. On the stage, Stéphane Freiss, who has never seen the feature film , took on the character with sincerity and simplicity.
The result is simply magical, wonderful.
At the end of the first performances, at the Antoine theater in Paris (10th), the audience applauded standing up.
The spectators, of all ages, some wipe away tears of emotion, others show moist eyes.
John Keating leaves his class, walking past the spectators.
On the stage, the actors have just climbed, one by one, on their desks to shout “O Captain, my captain!
», the throat tight with shame, anger, contrite gratitude.
It is because of them that their favorite teacher loses his job, the end of a high-level theatrical whirlwind.
Actors of breathtaking energy and talent
From the curtain rise to the last line, the sustained pace leaves no respite.
The director Olivier Solivérès placed a 9 m long blackboard as the main setting.
It is on it that John Keating traces “Carpe Diem” (“Pick the present day”), draws.
The desks of the eight students are mounted on casters, offering a dynamic game. Here they are in profile, then the following sequence from the front... We are treated to a dissolve like in the cinema, when the high school students bang on percussion in a cave, while finishing reading love poems.
The tom-tom continues on the music stands, in complete fluidity.
Ethan Oliel plays a sublime Neil Perry who cannot cope with his father's anger.
He juggles joy, frustration, sadness wonderfully.
Learn to think for yourself, free yourself from conventions, challenge the established order, but to what extent?
Whether it is Hélie Thonnat, the ultra shy Tod, Pierre Delage the laughing rotund Steven, Maxime Huriguen the platonic lover Richard who ends up freeing himself to the point of making a fool of himself, or even Audran Cattin in the guise of the rebel Charlie, these actors in their twenties are breathtaking in their energy and talent.
We laugh at their jokes, we are moved by their enthusiasm, we tremble with them in the face of the barriers that they push back in the joy of their youth.
And we jump up to applaud wholeheartedly for this gem.
Editor's note:
5/5
" Dead Poets Society ",
at the Antoine theater (10th arrondissement), Wednesday to Sunday, from €20 to €62.
Such.
01.42.08.77.71.