After years of multiplying the records and the tours that come with them, Marc Dupré will soon find his first love: humor. With butterflies in the stomach, but also a renewed desire to tell stories.
Marc Dupré is not afraid to admit it: his musical career had become a straightjacket. A comfortable and reassuring straitjacket, but a straitjacket all the same. “Sometimes I would play songs without realizing it. I realized lately that the stage was made too safe a place for me. I am a challenge guy. I felt I needed to put myself in danger, and I missed the adrenaline of humor. »
So it was a bit “on a whim” that he accepted the invitation from the ComediHa festival! to host the first gala of the 2023 edition, on August 8 at the Grand Théâtre de Québec. Accompanied on stage by several comedians, including Yannick De Martino, Véronique Claveau, Laurent Paquin and Richardson Zéphir, Marc Dupré will present four numbers written especially for the occasion.
This decision to take the microphone back to make people laugh blew on the embers of a project that had been brewing for some time, that of offering a new humorous solo.
The name of this show is already found: Well, let’s see!
It is also to make room in his busy schedule that Marc Dupré bowed out as coach at The voice after eight seasons in one of the famous swivel chairs. “I know I made the right decision. I didn’t want to fight anymore. And I felt that I could no longer accompany the competitors so closely. »
Even if he distilled small doses of humor here and there in his concerts, Marc Dupré has not offered a purely humorous solo since MD3, a show with which he toured Quebec from 2001 to 2004. best known for his talents as an imitator wishes to surprise the public by presenting a new facet of his talent on stage: that of the storyteller.
“I just turned 50. I have things to say on that. I also want to talk about my professional life in recent years, to talk about these big shows I did and which came with a lot of pressure. I’ve been through a lot in my career. Things I can tell today! »
The subject of paternity is also likely to be addressed. “I have three children who are very different, but all of whom are more mature than me! They are between 18 and 22 years old, but I am still like a mother lioness with them. I always get anxious, especially when they do stuff that doesn’t make sense, like parasailing hanging behind a boat! But that doesn’t stop them from doing it…”
The comedian will not turn his back on imitations – “it’s one of the tools I have to make people laugh” – but he aspires to put them better in context, to better integrate them into his subject than in the past. We should therefore not expect chain imitations like when he took over the voices of Marjo, Bryan Adams, Éric Lapointe and tutti quanti. “I won’t impersonate someone just for the sake of impressing. I’ve done it before and it doesn’t interest me anymore. »
His show, he wants it in his image: tender, but incisive at times. “I’m a good guy who can’t say no, sometimes to the point of getting into trouble. Me, I bawl at the Olympics, I’m sensitive! But I’m also impulsive and can sometimes get angry in the most unexpected situations! I’m sometimes hard to follow everyday! »
It also has no intention of lapsing into wicked humor or unnecessarily shocking. “I would feel very bad to find myself in the middle of a media storm for a joke. I tell myself that if I make a gag on someone, I have to be able to assume it in front of this person…”
Pranks about singing stars he’s done plenty in the past, but rarely while laughing at their personal lives or belittling them, he says. His years as an imitator have instead endowed him with a talent for observation, which he intends to use in his future shows. “When I walk into a new place, my brain starts spinning. I analyze everything. »
His brain will no doubt come close to overheating when he finds – and analyzes – for the first time in years the humor-loving public. “In music, people who come to see you already know your material. They want to hear your hits. Humor can be tough until the last minute. Everything has to be started over every night. The same gag will not necessarily work in the same way. »
Nevertheless, he is eager to reconnect with this art of making people laugh, which can be so rewarding, but also so cruel.