"I wasn't there for your mother",
apologizes Joseph (Gilles Gaston-Dreyfus) after the burial of Hélène's father (Anne Benoît) in a cemetery lost in the countryside.
“I was there, me”,
murmurs Paul (Stéphane De Groodt) aside.
The important thing is that they are all three, there, now, for her, repeats their common friend.
May they embrace and share his pain, together.
They leave on foot in the direction of Hélène's house.
The reunion in sad circumstances pushes them to tell each other their four truths.
They evoke the affection they have for each other and reveal themselves like never before.
The walk punctuated by breaks and changes of scenery (videos by Pierre-François Limbosch) loosens the tongues.
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"To life, to death !"
, they chant several times (title of the piece) as a motto.
After
My friend, Louis, Couple and Family evening,
the actor and writer Gilles Gaston-Dreyfus brings together three longtime friends, there is a fourth (Amira Hadzic, also assistant director), who makes a short appearance at the start of the show.
We first wait for his return, then we forget him!
The author wanted to show “the mysterious bonds of friendship.
Inexplicable alchemy and so clear to experience.
It is partly successful.
In the dialogues, there is something from Guillaume Canet's film,
Les Petits mouchoirs.
Hélène was a teacher, she is single and has no children.
She confesses to Joseph that she loved her.
The latter is surprised.
Is it too late?
"Why not me ?"
Paul asks himself again in the background.
But the other two don't hear him.
The trio's exchanges go in all directions.
The passing of time, death – that of the parents sends them back to their own – the meaning of life, of the choices they have not made, of the regrets, the fears that inhabit them and the hopes that they still remain.
The capricious weather, fatigue and helping alcohol, the defenses fall and the confidences are more and more personal.
The actors are directed without conviction by Gilles Gaston-Dreyfus himself.
(Maybe that's a lot for one man).
They take turns passing the baton.
Anne Benoît, who was already in
Couple
, is bursting with truth in the pants of a vulnerable woman.
Hands in his pockets, perplexed, Stéphane De Groodt sometimes loses his Latin, but this should be settled over the performances.
As for Gilles Gaston-Dreyfus, he draws his pin from this game of friendship, sensitive and moving.
NOTE:
To life, to death
, until February 12, at the Théâtre du Rond-Point 75008 Paris.
Loc.
: 01 44 95 98 21.
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SEE
ALSO
- Death of Philippe Tesson: a theatrical life
