We saw the play “Courgette”, staged in Côte-d’Or and awarded at the Molières

Nominated in seven categories at the Molières, the play Courgette by the Paradoxe(s) company, created at the Gaston Bernard theater in Chatillon-sur-Seine (Côte-d’Or), was rewarded during the ceremony on May 6. We went to see her in February.

In the theater, when the lights go out, it’s always the same refrain: the audience calms down, finishes its chatter by whispering, then silence falls, everyone holds their breath and the three shots are delayed. Zucchini then opens with a spotlight. In the light, alone on stage, the actor, Garlan Le Martelot, launches into a monologue.

This is Icar, alias Courgette, the main character of the story that will be played for us. With this entry, I am a little surprised, even destabilized. I’m afraid I won’t be able to get attached to the character. I guess I wasn’t expecting to see an adult playing an almost 10 year old child. The first words of the piece are those of the original book, the novel by Gilles Paris, Autobiography of a Zucchinipublished in 2002. Immediately, I am reassured: the piece will be faithful. It must be said that I am familiar with the winning story, its film adaptation by Claude Barras, which received two Césars in 2017, is one of my favorite works.

The entire audience has their eyes fixed on the actor. The story that Garlan Le Martelot presents to us is this: Courgette wanted to kill the sky to make her alcoholic mother happy. But he shot her. Following this accident, he was sent to a “home for skinned children”. What follows is an intimate initiatory story, which recounts the life in homes of traumatized children who are often abandoned to their own devices. The adaptation on stage takes up the chronology and narration of the novel, with musical and sung incises which manage without forcing to release a very funny and poignant tone at the same time. And that’s surely what makes it such a touching and successful adaptation.

The play revolves around a simple setting which, over the course of the story, proves its coherence and oscillates between innocent, juvenile humor marked by naivety, and more serious and touching subjects treated with subtlety. Domestic violence, lack of love, absence… and finally, we very easily get hooked on the acting of the actors, some of whom take on several roles at once.

This is also the case of Vanessa Cailhol who plays both Camille, the young placed girl with whom Courgette falls in love, and that of Rosy, the endearing educator. She was the one who was rewarded during the Molières ceremony, May 6 – she received the statuette for best actress in a public theater play.

From the meetings he has with the other children but also with the adults in the room, Icarus gradually manages to grow and heal from the lack of love. The more time goes on, the less I want it to end. I alternate between laughter and tears in my eyes. This is the first time I’ve seen such a beautiful piece about resilience and childhood.

The company which was in creative residency in 2021 for this play at the Gaston-Bernard theater in Châtillon-sur-Seine should announce new dates, in the region, for the 2024/2025 season, during June.