After Selfie and the huge success of J’aime Hydro, director Philippe Cyr finds actress Christine Beaulieu in the theatre. This time, the artistic director opens the doors of the company he has been running for a year, Prospero, for the role of Monica in Unbearable Long Embraces, by Ivan Viripaev, one of the most performed Russian playwrights in the world.
They are four characters in search of meaning and excess in a dead end existence. Two men and two women in their thirties looking for each other on two continents, in two cities, New York and Berlin. Against a background of drugs, sex and self-destructive violence, they testify to a pain in life that their generation can feel; a generation without God or master.
Unbearable Long Embraces is a rather radical work by Ivan Viripaev, a major figure in the “New Russian Drama”. The author, now exiled in Poland, is one of the most performed Russian playwrights in the world. And it is the subject of a fourth piece presented at Prospero, after the productions of Illusions, Oxygène and Les Enivrés.
“It’s unsettling writing, and it’s a very nice challenge. The text calls heavily on the creativity of the performers. It’s a real show of actors,” explains the director, highlighting the talent and versatility of Christine Beaulieu and the other cast members: Marc Beaupré, Joanie Guérin and Simon Lacroix.
“They want to feel alive. And there’s a difference between being alive and feeling alive,” adds Beaulieu. According to the two accomplices, the characters want to reinvent the world, and try to imagine something other than what capitalist and individualistic society offers them. To quote one of the characters at the start of the play: “Something other than this shitty plastic fucking life with no spiritual perspective!”
For Philippe Cyr, who wanted to rub shoulders with the international repertoire for his first season at the helm of Prospero, “contemporary theater can be both radical and popular”. The room is also bright, despite the powerful self-destruction depicted in it. “The show is going to be funny, scintillating, sparkling, with the work of the designers: the music, the set, the costumes and the magnificent lighting by Cédric Delorme-Bouchard; that’s raw talent! “adds the actress of J’aime Hydro, thrilled by the fact of working for the first time at Prospero.
We could not bring them together in the same room without asking them to review the immense success of the documentary theater play signed by Christine Beaulieu, and which they created together eight years ago. “Success gave us confidence in the power of theatrical art,” Cyr says. I love Hydro wasn’t a winning recipe to begin with: the premise was a bit pointed; the issues raised by Christine’s investigation, complex; and the duration of the performance [nearly four hours], unconventional… But the audience was very receptive. »
“The spectators should not be underestimated in our proposals, continues Cyr. The hardest part is convincing them to buy a ticket and come and sit in a theater. Once inside, the public is open and curious. »
What’s next? Will the creators add an episode? “We are in reflection, answers Christine Beaulieu. Energy news is constantly changing. Data changes quickly. There are limits to reshaping a story for years. I don’t want J’aime Hydro to become the Brew of documentary theatre. »
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La Maison Théâtre offers children aged 5 to 8 an incursion into the mythological and aesthetic universe of the Wolastoqiyik nation with this play written by Quebecer Dave Jenniss. Delphine, a dreamy and determined young girl, has decided to find the lost drum of her deceased muhsum (grandfather) at all costs. Her quest will lead her into the world of the spirits of the forest, where she will meet amazing animals, including a porcupine that smells of swamp and an owl opera singer.
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