This Saturday, at 2 p.m., many spectators arrive at La Criée with their picnic to participate in Léon Blum A Heroic Life, a play interspersed with a ball at 5:30 p.m. and a banquet at 10 p.m. on large tables covered with red and white gingham tablecloths. In the queue, Léa, in her thirties, joined in the game with her sister: “I’m a huge fan of Philippe Collin’s podcast, it attracted me“, she said. It was indeed a performance like no other that we experienced, friendly and civic, as hoped by Robin Renucci, director of the Criée.
The exceptional nine-hour format allows us to enter into the historical complexity of Léon Blum without reducing him to the totem of the Popular Front and the paid holidays of 1936. These hours pass like a “letter in the post” thanks to the radio rhythm driven by Philippe Collin, to the professional actors, Charles Berling and Bérengère Warluzel, and amateurs, as well as to the designer Sébastien Goethals who brings to life before our eyes the historical episodes: the Dreyfus affair, the street battles of the far-right leagues in 1934, the euphoria and carefreeness on the beaches during the summer of 1936, etc.
Striking Charles Berling
The success of the project is of course due to the talent of Charles Berling: he strikingly embodies Léon Blum with his thin voice and his glasses, his precision, his historical lucidity, his physical courage in the face of the violence of the anti-Semitic attacks. The ephemeral troupe gathered around him is just as talented and makes the civic dimension of the project evident and brilliantly avoids the trap of nostalgia. A choir of high school students from the Domaine des Possibilities school in Arles performs songs L’Internationale, Vas-y Léon, Le temps des Cerises, and embodies the crowd which cheers or vilifies Blum depending on the circumstances and political camps.
Four young actors alternating at the Regional School of Cannes and Marseille (Eracm) play various characters alongside dancers. They are striking proof on stage of the dimension of transmission to younger generations carried by this extraordinary theatrical project.
Certain phrases come back like a refrain from this politician of conviction. “There is one thing that I will never lack: resolution, courage, fidelity“, he asserted thus. Or on the subject of paid leave: “There is no joy at work without joy in life.“
A humanism and political righteousness that excite. In the evening, the room moved into another dimension: fraternity and exchange under the bells and whistles of the ball and the banquet which involved a much larger audience than one could have imagined.
