The amazing actor Eric Elmosnino plays the title role of “Misanthrope” directed by the always subtle Georges Lavaudant at the Domaine d’O, in Montpellier, from January 24 to 29. He answered questions from Midi Libre between two rehearsals.
How was this new “Misanthrope” project born?
With Jo (Georges Lavaudant Editor’s note), we had already worked together a long time ago. We met again maybe, I don’t know, a year, a year and a half ago, in a theater where I was playing at the time. We said to each other: “I was thinking of you”, “Me too”, it made us laugh, so we said to ourselves that we should see each other again, have a little one more time , for the road, like. “Yeah, okay. » He called me back a little late, asking me what I thought of The Misanthrope. “I don’t know, I’ll read again.” (laughs)
You didn’t then ask him why this Molière, in particular?
No need. The Misanthrope is one of the great plays in the repertoire, and Alceste, for an actor, is an incredible role. There are no questions to ask, you have to go for it; we are happy. Afterwards, when the time to work on it approaches, it’s something else! (laughs)
What does “The Misanthrope” tell you?
But so many things! When you read it, you inevitably wonder if you might have some affinities with this gentleman, this young man in real life. Besides, I asked myself the question of age: it’s all the things he says, all these convictions, but it’s better if it’s in the mouth of a young man of 30 years old who has life ahead of him and who wants a kind of absolute purity and radicality; which can be touching. Afterwards, in the mouth of a guy like me, you could say to yourself that he’s been through a couple of things, so it’s weird that he’s in there. (laughs) But in the end, it can also be touching in another way…
Afterwards, as for telling you precisely what the piece says, we discover new aspects of it every day. That’s what’s great about a classic like this, if you’re serious for two minutes: it’s bigger than you, it will still be there when you haven’t been for a long time, and new actors will continue to come along. rub it. So, we try to take it as seriously as possible, and we’ll see if I, an actor, have the chance to have him visit me a little. It seems crazy to say that but, to a text like that, you can’t stick your ideas, your moods, it would be stupid, it wouldn’t work. We must hope, even pray, that he deigns to come and say hello!
Does Georges Lavaudant let us suspect what Alceste he hopes for from you: disturbing, ridiculous, funny?
-Normally, he would have to be all that because the role contains all that, it’s not up to Jo or me. We try to expand the field of possibilities, to see how far it can go without it becoming something else. Alceste is constantly in struggle, in rage, against himself, and against the whole world; he is that but he is not only that. He can also be a helpless child. He only speaks of sincerity but he can be insincere (with Orontes, at the beginning, for example). There you go, we try to see how far we can go, taking everything at face value and understanding everything we say (which is not so simple).
You’ve already rubbed shoulders with Molière quite a bit…
…Yes, but not to his alexandrine pieces, until then, and that changes everything! So my job involves that: a deconstruction to reach meaning, and the work of verse. It’s about respecting the music without being trapped by it. We must succeed in relying on this singular beauty to achieve something human. As if we were overcome by these feelings and we could only express them in this way. It’s working, what!
You, in fact, seem to be working all the time, theater, cinema, series, and without exception…
Yes, I did private theater after having done a lot of subsidized work. At the cinema, the same, in different families, because that’s what I loved as a spectator: popular cinema with these actors that you enjoy seeing from film to film. Afterwards, I didn’t do only great things but that doesn’t matter.
We feel that you like to work…
Do I like to work? Pfff… (laughs) Yes, well, it’s true, I like it, but above all I like the stories, the adventures. There, for example, I didn’t want to play The Misanthrope at all costs, it wasn’t an actor’s dream, I never told myself that one day I would have to do that… No, it he’s Jo, it’s my relationship with him, the desire to go back a long way together. Afterwards, looking at it more closely, as an actor, we say to ourselves that, all the same, it’s not bad to sometimes do a little homework. Yeah, it’s good to stick with it. And it’s good! (laughs)
