We thought he was off the hook.
Saved by a small miracle worthy of its twists and turns, and a small embroidered handkerchief abandoned by Marilyn Monroe in the toilets of a large New York hotel ... This glamorous memory, this relic that remained under glass for nearly 40 years before her last owner resigns himself to selling it, last year for 300,000 euros, had made it possible to believe in the definitive rescue of the Comédie Italienne.
The small theater with a sky-blue and gold facade in rue de la Gaîté (14th century), the only theater in France dedicated to the Commedia dell'Arte, was able to catch its breath and turn its accounts from scarlet red to pale pink.
"We were able to repay the debts and even lift the mortgage that weighed on the theater", consoled himself Attilio Maggiulli, iconoclastic founder of the Italian Comedy, after this heartbreaking sale.
To this favorable wind had been added another, likely to make the theater team confident: serious, enthusiastic and visibly determined investors had engaged the overdrive for a recovery of the room, after various candidates who s 'were found to be too fragile, less motivated, or outright refused by Attilio Maggiulli, resigned to selling his theater but not his soul.
So of the king of Italian porn Rocco Siffredi for example, or ... of Dieudonné, the ex-humorist several times condemned for his anti-Semitic remarks and apologia for terrorism, who had already tried his luck by intervening lawyers, but remained blocked at the door baroque in the rue de la Gaîté by a furious Maggiulli.
"Even if it means making a pact with the devil, I don't want to see his horns", enraged the founder of the Italian Comedy.
"We will end up being less observant"
Except that since the miracle of the handkerchief and the arrival of the ideal buyers, nothing has gone as he imagined.
The manna brought by the first and the rebirth promised by the second fizzled out.
"They were serious, they had even made appraisal the theater, and since September, it is radio silence", laments Claudine Durant-Simon, right arm of Attilio Maggiulli.
“The only one who remained in the ranks and made it known, with quantified proposals, is Dieudonné… she underlines.
Obviously we don't want it, this idea makes you want to throw up, but if everyone keeps stepping on us, we'll end up looking less!
By dint of being sent to the roses or calling for help in a vacuum, we cannot hope for another miracle ”.
Attilio the passionate Italian does not want "to count on the Madonna" to bail out the theater.
Direct allusion to the drastic reduction or even the cessation of subsidies formerly paid by the City, the Region and the Ministry of Culture.
Too specific, the small theater does not sufficiently fulfill the specifications required in particular by the City, and all its requests have remained dead letters.
"The debts are on the rise, we are already at 40,000 euros and there is 6,000 euros in rent every 3 months ... At some point something must be done".
For his part, Dieudonné and his production house remain in the running.
Three years after his expulsion from the Main-d'Or theater, he is still trying to rent the room and would be ready to pay nearly 85,000 euros in rent per year.
The Dieudonné scarecrow effect
What if the “Dieudonné threat” and its scarecrow effect woke up the authorities and saved the theater?
In any case the Region is worried, enough for Valérie Pécresse herself to take up the pen and seize the Minister of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot, and the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo.
"Everything must be done to avoid this recovery by Dieudonné, considering the character of the shows he gave, and for which he was condemned by the courts," underlines the president of the Region.
Valérie Pécresse says she is "ready to examine the solutions to be implemented so that the Italian Comedy has the necessary time to find a buyer worthy of its history and of artistic and republican values".
Attilio Maggiulli created his theater 46 years ago and despite its international fame and reputation as the only commedia dell'arte theater in France, its founder had to resolve to put it on sale.
LP / Élodie Soulié
In the meantime, Behind the door of the Comédie Italienne, the rehearsals have the bitter taste and a little anger of a company in suspense.
"We are preparing an adaptation of the Cheetah, confirms Claudine Durand-Simon, but we are sailing on sight, unable to play or to project ourselves".