In Tashkent, the play by Rémi De Vos, currently at the Marigny theater in Paris, the character of the Author seems to have come out of a novel by Thomas Bernhard. From a novel, not a play. Because the plays by Thomas Bernhard that I have seen have almost always been massacred by the directors. I then thought of the joy that reading Thomas Bernhard’s novels gave me and my disappointment led me to the point of indignation: how can anyone do that! It was as if these directors and I had not read the same Thomas Bernhard. A layer of boredom covered a feast of intelligence and humor. Faced with the succession of these fiascos I was led to wonder if Thomas Bernhard was made for the theater. In any case, it was not made for directors to rely on his texts by literally climbing on them to build their careers, as the Author complains in Remi De Vos’s play. Old, sick, perpetually seated in his chair of prostration, the Author is suffering from an aphasia from which he only emerges to vomit his execration towards this filthy breed that are theater directors in general and in particular those who are seized with his plays: “To be completely clear, I always thought that anyone could become a director while very few people were capable of writing something worth performing .”
It is Hervé Pierre who plays the role of the Author. He is fed and washed by an unbearable young woman (Valérie Crouzet) who intends to be rewarded by inheriting his copyright. It doesn’t count that well, because the intermittent aphasic doesn’t seem about to give up any time soon dwelling on his resentments, even if, during his ill-timed declamations, he happens to allude to his death: “I I have known a good number of theater authors who committed suicide. They were all authors who did not stage their plays, that is to say, they found themselves in the hands of the directors and it is not no doubt that this is the reason why they committed suicide. Personally, I know several authors who committed suicide while I do not know any director who committed suicide.” A suicide which would not help the affairs of the abuser of weakness since she is not married. Not yet. To do this, she needs to get her suitor out of aphasia. It is for this purpose that she summons an actress who played in the Author’s plays, covering herself with glory at the time when she was still his companion; this character is played by Clotilde Mollet who is still Hervé Pierre’s companion. Is it the perfume of his ex that inspires the Author to take this new charge: “I have known actors who committed suicide but I don’t know any directors who have ended their lives. And that’s it that we understand that the authors and the actors are the real artists and that the directors are a joke.”
Remi De Vos’ play takes on a higher dimension with the arrival of one of his former actors (Grégoire Œstermann). Unbridled admirer of the Author, in a state of love for the work of the genius which, he readily admits, changed his life. He knows everything about him and he is ready to do anything to save his idol from his madness. But the latter has other concerns: “If a review says good things about the text for fifteen lines and good things about the staging for three lines, these are the three lines that we will find in the press kit and the fifteen lines will be thrown in the trash.” Smallness of large wounds. Curiously, this piece by Rémi De Vos was directed by a director, Dan Jemmett, who, through his choreography of aphasia, was able to do justice to the author’s vagrant remarks which are certainly not those of the author, who loves everyone, and the spectators.