If François Arnaud was not starring at the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde this month, the actor would “very likely” have been in Los Angeles when the fires began to ravage California. “My things are safe, but I have friends who lost everything,” he whispers.
“It’s difficult to see it from a distance,” confides the man who spends several months a year in California. But on the other hand, I probably would have been evacuated, so I wouldn’t be there right now. It’s an unimaginable tragedy.”
If he is currently in Montreal, it is to defend another tragedy – this one, fortunately, fictional – on the stage of the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde. François Arnaud makes his big return to the stage after an absence of 16 years in A children’s party, new creation by playwright Michel Marc Bouchard also starring Sylvie Drapeau and Iannicko N’Doua.
The actor lends his features to David, a man whose every aspect of his life exudes perfection; from her husband (perfect) to her daughters (also perfect), everything seems to succeed for her. But all this is in fact only illusory. And the children’s party mentioned in the title will crack this armor, bringing down the smooth facade behind which he hides his most indescribable faults and faults. Little by little, David will get stuck in a whirlwind whose outcome will be disturbing.
Yves Renaud
Embracing immodesty
François Arnaud admits, he was initially surprised to receive this proposal. A very first version – at the time a long monologue – even put him off because it was “too crude, too dark”.
-“I wondered why I was being considered for a role like that. But I realized that Michel Marc Bouchard had thought of the actor (and not the man) that I am to bring David to life. And I wanted to explore these gray areas and this immodesty,” he says.
Upstream work was still necessary to allow him to embrace the imperfections and flaws of his character. Because yes, David is in fact a “monster”, attests the actor. But to avoid confining himself to his darkest side, François Arnaud had to decline it in different shades of gray.
“He is fundamentally superficial, he wallows in rage, he has a part of repressed homophobia… I had to accept these sides to embody him, so that he is not just a monster. And anyway, I don’t want to play a character who is perfect. I’m not interested. I want him to have faults, to be human,” explains François Arnaud.
- The room A children’s party is presented at TNM until February 8.
Our review:
It’s like a slap in the face that we receive A children’s partya moving modern tragedy carried at arm’s length by a trio of masterful performers. François Arnaud embodies with bravado a character with dark designs, fully embracing a particularly complex and disturbing score. But the star of the show remains Sylvie Drapeau, the actress proving absolutely enjoyable in a role which brings a necessary comic relief to the deliciously cynical pen of author Michel Marc Bouchard.
