Testimonial: Thierry Romanens shares his Voisard

I am not authorized to write a hagiography of Alexandre Voisard, nor even a tribute, many others besides me would have every legitimacy to do so. I can nevertheless testify to the strong and simple bond that we had, it is due to an emotion which is just as strong and which goes beyond me.

First there was a chance meeting in 2006, I met the man before the work, and I briefly told him of my desire to put on a show around poetry, why not his. He is my first living poet. Like good college students, we exchange addresses.

Read it all, eat it all

Then, I go through his work, I read almost everything, I eat it up. I start the rehearsals, I don’t even think to consult him, I don’t really know where I’m going, to be honest, I just feel with the musicians that a new land is being offered to us, larger, freer. The way we work is changing. It’s a revelation, which has guided and colored all my work since.

“Treat the fire.” I don’t dare to invite him and hardly keep him informed, out of fear or shyness. Six days before the premiere, he wrote me a laconic postcard: “Dear Thierry, the Swiss Society of Authors is sending me a questionnaire – 6 pages – about a show about which I know nothing. How to do it? Friendships. Alexander.” It’s June 2009. I invite him, he comes to the second, and at the end of the performance, I invite him on stage for greetings, we exchange a sweet look, we hug each other.

A few days later he wrote to me: “(…) As for me, I believe I have expressed my absolute satisfaction to you, but that was an understatement. In reality, I was moved from start to finish and that had never happened to me when my texts were read by third parties. I wondered about this disorder. I believe it is due to the fact that (instinctively?) you chose the extracts that touch me most intimately (…). This means a perfect agreement of sensitivities (…). Thank you for so much friendship, for this wonderful work of mediation which now makes you one of my most privileged passers-by. Whole-heartedly. Alexander.” Heal the fire.

Knighted by a master

Being knighted by a master was a priceless, rare gift for me. And, without his knowledge, he provided me with the battering ram to break down the doors of the Théâtre de Vidy where I was able to officially create “Voisard, vous dit Voisard…” in 2011. Voisard, I never stopped discovering him through his books that he sent me with each publication, his letters that I opened almost feverishly, and a few precious moments shared.

His words are so many refuges, not to hide me there, but to nourish me there. Poetry is all-powerful, it can do anything, without risk of abuse of power. In 2018, he entrusted me with an unpublished text: “The game of questions and embarrassment”, I wanted to take it on stage with him, his doctor dissuaded him, “death in the soul” he could not participate to the project. I am editing this text without him and calling the show “En attendant Voisard” in 2022.

I imagine him now, with a smile on his lips telling me: “You see, scoundrel, on this one, it’s me who will have to wait again…” “If you love me, read me” he writes in “Post scriptum”.

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