Published at 1:01 am. Updated at 8:00 a.m.
Francis Legault, creator of L'autre midi à la table d'à contre, launches a new show on January 1st. All week long, he hosts five leading artists at his microphone to talk to them about the characters they would like to play on stage or screen… but that were never offered to them.
During the week, Sophie Cadieux, René Richard Cyr, Anne Dorval, Théodore Pellerin and Marie Laberge (known as an author but also an actress) will come and confide in Legault. With his new show, the director brings the audience into the actors' work process, both at the table in the rehearsal room and in their privacy.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Director and interviewer Francis Legault
I imagined “En trois temps” so that we could talk about theater and acting with sensitivity and humanity. In a calm tone, not dry at all.
Francis Legault, director and interviewer
“I really like theater,” the director and interviewer continues. I am fascinated by the work of actresses and actors. However, I notice that we often invite them just to promote something. We ask them for an anecdote from the set, the time when they seemed the craziest, we force them to share their recipe for carrot cake… It's rarer that we invite them to talk about the way they approach a figure, speak. »
By trusting three characters they would only dream of defending, each cast member will reveal themselves to the public. And also explore the dark (or light) areas of the human soul contained in the great theatrical characters.
The King of Villains
For example, one of the characters chosen by René Richard Cyr is Richard III, “the king of evil” in Shakespeare. Cyr straight up admits that he loves playing villains in the theater. Because it is “gratifying” for an actor to feel like he has the audience in the palm of his hand! He remembers Duceppe's audience reaction when he booed Monique Joly in the mid-1970s when she played nurse Ratched in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.”
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, LA PRESS ARCHIVE
René Richard Cyr, in front of the National Theater School in Montreal
Cyr will make some revelations during his hour-long interview with Francis Legault. He addresses “his fear of censorship” by talking about the piece Oranges Are Green. “Claude Gauvreau said: “Censorship is the negation of thought.” »
It is not the words that are the problem, but the intention we have when we say a word.
René Richard Cyr, in the program En trois temps
The director judges that the message in the current creation has become more important than the story: “I sometimes feel like I'm watching RDI while I'm going to the theater. » And he drops a little bombshell by raising the issue of artistic freedom, even at the risk of appearing right-wing. “I'm going to say something I've never said in public before: minorities are going to kill us. We must find what unites us and not look for what divides us. »
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Recording of the broadcast En trois temps
Tremblay seen by Anne Dorval
One of Anne Dorval's characters is Marie-Louise from “À toi, Forever, ta Marie-Lou” by Michel Tremblay. For the show she presents two excerpts from the piece. The actress has never played Tremblay before and finds it difficult to put the famous author's tongue in her mouth. The actor Patrice Robitaille surprises her at Radio-Canada's Studio 2 to play Léopold. Their subsequent exchange – about Duplessist Quebec, toxic couples, the “tragedy of everyday life” – is fascinating!
“I hope that the series will continue to explore a gallery of rich characters from theatre, cinema or television: the angry, the psycho-rigid, the fearful, the jealous, the idealistic, the naive, etc. I want with actors and actresses creating a gallery of characters that reflect the complexity of the human soul,” he concludes.
In three stages, from Monday January 1st to Friday January 5th, from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m., at ICI Première. Also available on the OHdio platform.