The actor and playwright Jean-Philippe Baril Gérard, to whom we owe in particular “Haute demolition”, “Royal” and “Manuel de la vie sauvage”, will deal in his next novel with the protection of the environment and the instrumentalization of children in this struggle.
Again asking how far we are willing to go to defend our ideas, a question that has often marked his works, the author stages a protagonist who claims to be fighting for a great cause. “It’s about protecting the environment and using children as standard-bearers in this fight,” he told Stéphan Bureau in the latest podcast “Contact” released on QUB. radio on Thursday.
For the same reason, he inevitably draws a parallel with the young activist Greta Thunberg, “but a Greta who wouldn’t be the one who had the initiative and who finds herself like a peasant instrumentalized by dad,” he says.
“Greta Thunberg, I don’t think she would be here if her parents hadn’t encouraged and supported her in this,” added the multidisciplinary playwright, recalling that he liked to engage with larger-than-life characters, even almost untouchable, like he did with the lawyers in “Royal” or with the comedians in “Haute Demolition”.
In this episode of “Contact”, Jean-Philippe Baril-Guérard also discussed with Stéphan Bureau the question of the morale of success and hatred as a vector of achievement, but also of the generational and ideological rifts that have emerged since the advent of society’s networks and its artistic ones , professional and family history.
The author, who has a soft spot for the anti-heroes he regularly portrays in his works, also deplores the impoverishment of the debate in public space by the rapid introduction of reductive labels, often indisputable and without appeal, but also for the consequences that they have bring with them.
“There is absolutely no way to moderate the speech. We quickly retreat to our corner. When you say someone is a fascist, a Nazi or a misogynist, it’s hard to get past such a label,” he said.
A new episode of “Contact” is released every Thursday on the QUB radio platform. Episodes can also be uploaded to YouTube.