That Fabrice Luchini is a phenomenon is evident. That he is above all an exceptional actor is the other certainty towards which the audience at the Théâtre de l’Atelier, in Paris, is inclined, where the artist’s last show is performed (which will be repeated, starting January 19, 2025). . at the Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin, in Paris).
Almost two hours of a torrent of sensations, emotions and words where it is only about Victor Hugo. Hugo praised by Baudelaire and saluted by Péguy. Hugo, for whom the actor is careful not to build a marble mortuary statue (it is not his style), but which he makes remain, today, vibrant, sensual, human. More necessary for our lives than ever. If we had to remember just one glimpse of this fiery representation, it would be the imperative need for the wedding between poetry and humanity. A cliché? Yes, but who is naked here: without poetry humanity is poor in words, without humanity poetry does not have much to say.
How does the actor achieve this feat? In the first pages of satin shoe (1929), an Announcer appears and warns everyone: “Listen carefully, don’t cough, and try to understand a little. What you don’t understand is the most beautiful, the longest is the most interesting and what you don’t find funny is the most fun. » Paul Claudel is not mentioned on the set, but Fabrice Luchini could have mentioned him in the programmatic preamble. Not only because the audience stops coughing the moment he begs them to do so, in one of his shameless speeches about the one who has the secret. But also because it creates an oceanic feeling in the room. He calls it brotherhood: “There are 600 people present every night, I have never experienced anything like this”the actor enthuses.
An intangible communion
The fact is that an intangible communion is formed around the literature taken by Hugo to stratospheric heights and which the actor knows how to put on stage with a consummate art of suspense, waiting and preparations.
Less mutt than usual, sometimes even solemn and almost painful when the Pastoral by Beethoven (“This deaf man who had a soul heard the infinite”), crumples and smoothes his manuscript, puts on his glasses, takes them off, rubs his left sleeve with his right hand, looks at the audience with the childish but shrewd gaze of a patented seducer. His face is plastic. His voice wanders between confidences or invectives. He pretends to stutter before saying the verses directly. He remains leaning on a wooden table for a long time, sits in the chair and then in the armchair. Three or four trips to space, nothing more.
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