the essential
On December 20, the Georges-Leygues theater hosts the play “Le secret des secrets”, written and directed by Benoît Solès. A former member of the Baladins who had never yet experienced the Villeneuve boards.
Benoît Solès is not unknown on the French and international scenes. He continues his adventure with his play “La machine de Turing”, awarded 4 Molières in 2019. “This play continues to live and take me all over the world. I will soon be doing the 1000th performance. I am currently in Vietnam on a cruise ship where I play it. It’s a great adventure that continues, but it’s not the only one.”
Indeed, after his last creation “La Maison du loup”, which he presented in Agen, he immersed himself, for his new creation, in a very particular universe which took him back to his youth, “Le secret of secrets.”
“It was following an article that I had read in the press that I became interested in this story. It was an article which spoke of a historian, Mégan Piorko, who delivered the results of her discovery and research which resulted: the search for the recipe for the philosopher's stone, the Holy Grail of all alchemists throughout the centuries.
“I found myself in my adolescent readings in this research”
< It must be said that it is a fascinating story into which he fell in 2018, the young history researcher Mégan Piorko found a notebook in the British Library. A notebook belonging to John Dee, an English astrologer and alchemist, advisor to Queen Elizabeth in the 17th century. By studying his writings more closely, she comes across a few pages, not yet documented and which are coded. They are assembled backwards and are not in the same handwriting. She discovers that they are from the hand of the son of John Dee, himself an alchemist and who had declared to have found the secret of the philosopher's stone.
“What fascinated me about this story is that she decided to decode its pages, convinced that they held the path to this famous philosopher's stone. Unable to do so on her own, she turned to the community scientist through the Internet. It was the period of the health crisis linked to Covid. A young scientist then contacted her saying: “I managed to decode these lines.”
Bruno Perroud
This story triggers in Benoît Solès a return to his adolescent and young adult readings. “I found myself in the “Club of Five”, the “Da Vinci Code” and even “The Name of the Rose”. Real adventure novels, full of mysteries and esotericism. Many films and books had been written on these themes But no play This is what I set out to do. During my research, I contacted Mégan Piorko. famous notebook, trigger of this whole story. A real shock for me.
But then, once equipped with all this material, how can we make a play out of it?
“An adventure played by young people for all audiences”
He sets about writing the play. But how to do it? Talk only about esotericism, only alchemy, only philosophical research? “That wasn't the solution. I had to make it a real adventure novel, with a reading on several levels. It was a lot of fun to build, but also very complex. I immediately decided that this play would be performed by young actors, in their thirties, a group of friends. To also show that history researchers are not necessarily bookworms, as we often have the idea. , like Mégan, with a rocker look tattooed After the first performances in Avignon, all types of audiences came to see it: young people looking for adventure, more erudite people wishing to learn more about this discovery, the curious, theater lovers… And I don't. I've only had good feedback.”
For the author, the most difficult thing was to set up the dialogues and the back and forth between our time and the 17th century. “But it works. Everyone seems satisfied. And for me, it’s also a dive into my history, into my youthful passions.”
But this is not Benoît Solès’ only satisfaction. “Even as Baladin, I had never played on the stage of the Georges-Leygues theater. When I came to Lot-et-Garonne, it was either at the Ducourneau theater in Agen or during the Bonaguil festival. So, it's a real first for me. My family, my friends, the Baladins will be there. I'm going to make a quick return trip to meet everyone. be a lot of emotions.”
