“The party will be beautiful because we will be the beauty there? Even boring, would we be there to make you dream? » These questions asked by David, the character played by the actor François Arnaud, are at the heart of the text by Michel Marc Bouchard which is about to be created at the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde (TNM) in a production by Florent Siaud . Despite what its title might suggest — A children’s party —, the play is a tragedy, a modern tale where beauty represents both the only hope of salvation and the most fatal of traps.
Fourteen years after being forced to refuse the title role of Tom on the farm at the Center du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui to accept that of César Borgia in the TV series The BorgiasFrançois Arnaud, 39, is preparing to play his first major role on a Montreal stage, a complex character which was written for him by Michel Marc Bouchard. “It’s a magnificent adventure,” explains the actor. In this not always easy profession, where we constantly have to convince everyone that we are capable of being what we are not, I strive to follow the people who trust me, and Michel Marc is certainly one of them. »
Arnaud is all the more grateful to see this collaboration come to fruition as over the years, a few theater projects, in New York and Montreal, fell through due to unavailability or confinement. “It’s a challenge that I’ve wanted for a long time,” he reveals, “but which at the same time scares me. I would dare say that being on such a large set, often alone, gives me a certain amount of stress. I actually had a nightmare a few nights ago where I was told on opening night that the play was a musical. I had to improvise melodies. It was hell! Letting go, in the face of this nervousness, is all I can do. »
During the pandemic, Michel Marc Bouchard sent François Arnaud a monologue entitled The toad. “That’s how I discovered the character of David,” says the man whom the health crisis prompted to leave the United States to return to Quebec. I was put off at first, because it was very aggressive, very sexual. I really wondered what Michel Marc could see in me that inspired him to be so narcissistic, even sociopathic. Then, a year and a half later, after reading a new version of the text and discussing it with Michel Marc, I understood that it was my acting skills that suggested such a monster to him, and not my personality. »
The beauty of the devil
Of devastating beauty, of rare elegance, the very image of physical, social and professional perfection, orthodontist owner of a house in the suburbs, married to the benevolent Nicolas (Iannicko N’Doua) and father of two adorable little girls aged 7 and 9 years old, David (François Arnaud) is a control freak. Obsessed with appearances, with success, with achievement, it’s a real time bomb.
As a gay man, he gives himself an additional responsibility, that of corresponding to a standard, a model of purity and monogamy, a pressure that he formulates as follows: “We are perfect. We are ideal for hiding the fault. Ideal for filling the gap. Ideal so as not to be rejected. Ideal for being accepted. » One day, while the same-sex family is visiting Claire (Sylvie Drapeau), a visual artist who has organized with as much enthusiasm as possible a “children’s party” to mark her grandson’s birthday, an event occurs that pushes the hero off his pedestal, setting in motion the gears of a terrible tragedy.
Thematically, the play flirts with social criticism, notably by depicting the rampant narcissism of our times, but it does so by staying away from sermons, in a rather metaphorical, tragic, and even mythological way, n not hesitating to summon the figures of Narcissus, Tiresias, Medea and Icarus. This formally dizzying material, where the three protagonists are inseparable while belonging to distinct universes, where several secondary characters (like the children) are only present on stage through their voices, it seems ideal for Florent Siaud, also at the comfortable with Molière and Racine as with Sarah Kane and Joël Pommerat.
In this fog to cut with a knife, a space that Cocteau would not deny, a place worthy of fairy tales, with furtive shadows and disturbing echoes, a suspended world which will unfold on the TNM set thanks to Romain Fabre (scenography ), Nicolas Descoteaux (lighting), Vincent Legault (music) and Félix Fradet-Faguy (video), the character of David acts in a way as a narrator, the master of a disturbing ceremony. “Nicolas was affable,” Claire said in the room. He shook his hands. David seemed elsewhere. As if he were performing. As if the party was a setting that had come to him. As if we were extras in his story. »
A character with rough edges
Although it is not uncommon for his name to be found in the lists of the most sexy from here and elsewhere, François Arnaud admits to being relatively uninterested in this dimension of his work. “As time does its work,” he says, smirking, “I am reminded less and less often about my appearance, and that suits me perfectly. As an actor, I try to stay away from anything that relies primarily on beauty. I’m even reluctant to play a leading role if it means playing a pretty, smooth person. It certainly caused me to lose some important contracts, but to want to play a character, I have to feel pushed by him. »
In this sense, the main character ofA children’s party has something to fascinate the actor, since he is as beautiful as he is filthy, steeped in fertile paradoxes. “David has something in common with César Borgia and Vincent Lacroix,” says Arnaud. Like them, he uses his charisma and has somewhat loose morals. He has his own code of honor, a mixture of perversion and lucidity which makes him very interesting in my eyes. »
While David undoubtedly has something monstrous, that he is an abyss with the power to swallow everything, the actor took another route to meet his character. “Rather than demonizing him, rather than pointing the finger at him, I brought him much closer to me. I agreed to look at myself in him like in a mirror, to see my good and my less good sides. I hope that the public will be able to identify with David, at least in part, that they will feel a certain empathy towards him. »
