Two formidable pieces of ferocity and drollery,
Les Parents Terribles
, vaudeville by Jean Cocteau un temps interdict, and
Joyeuses Easter
, a hilarious boulevard from 1980 by Jean Poiret and adapted to the cinema with Jean-Paul Belmondo, are back in theaters at Paris.
At the Hébertot Theater, Muriel Mayette-Holtz, the first woman to have directed the Comédie-Française, and Charles Berling are "
Les Parents terribles
" in this new version, directed by Christophe Perton from the original 1938 manuscript. Twice , in 1939 and 1941, its performances were banned under pressure from the collaborationist movement, which saw in it “
a depressing spectacle of a French family
”.
"
With diabolical mastery and all the codes of vaudeville
,” according to Christophe Perton, the play notably evokes an abusive mother who does everything to oppose her son's first love.
Read alsoAre you more Beckett or Cocteau?
Endgame at the Atelier and Les Parents terribles at Hébertot
Les Parents terribles
by Jean Cocteau in 1948, with Jean Marais, Yvonne de Bray, Gabrielle Dorziat...
A companion of Cocteau, Jean Marais performed the play twice, in 1938 as the son and in 1977 as the father.
In 1948, he was also drafted for the film adaptation.
“
This piece is still very modern.
It says a lot about the couple, parenthood and its excesses
”, confides Charles Berling who, with Muriel Mayette-Holtz, forms a diabolical couple, both cynical and funny.
Maria de Medeiros ( Quentin Tarantino's
Pulp Fiction
) plays the "matriarch's" sister.
At the Marigny Theater,
Happy Easter
offers a less poisonous boulevardier register, relying on endless misunderstandings.
While his wife is away for the weekend, a man invites a young woman for a drink.
The meeting is interrupted by the unexpected return of the wife.
Her husband tries desperately to pass off his guest as his hidden daughter.
Read alsoGeorges Lautner, a pasha of cinema
Happy Easter
by Georges Lautner in 1984, with Jean-Paul Belmondo, Sophie Marceau, Marie Laforêt, Michel Beaune, Rosy Varte...
Forty years after its creation with Maria Pacôme and Jean Poiret, the play returns with Gwendoline Hamon, Dominique Frot, Claire Nadeau and Nicolas Briançon, also directing, in the continuity of Le Canard à l'Orange which he put on
at
the Théâtre de La Michodière in 2019, with 7 Molières nominations.
"Happy Easter
is a boulevard under acid, a modern Feydeau... The first feminist play where the junk seducer is reduced to ashes
", summarizes Nicolas Briançon, a figure of successful vaudevilles for several years.
“
It's the most difficult piece I've played.
Each replica is essential, like a game of Lego
”, he added, regretting in passing that the boulevard theater “
is so often regarded with commiseration
".