At the beginning there is his voice that we listen to in the dark for a few minutes. Light. A pair of red legs appear emerging from high purple curtains partly hiding the back of the stage of the Bouffes du Nord theater. On the ground, a small mountain of the same felted fabric covers almost the entire space. The whole thing swells then deflates sometimes, as if it were breathing… This is the terrain for an atypical game to which Camille Cottin lends itself fully.
Her legs have disappeared, we can see her crawling under the fabric to emerge. Camouflage bombers and Bermuda shorts worn over a red, close-fitting latex-type jumpsuit, the actress equipped with a microphone has never stopped talking… She is a young German woman in transition, having an appointment with her gynecologist in London. He will transplant a circumcised penis into him. While he examines her at length and in detail in preparation for the operation, she gives herself up, lays herself bare.
An adaptation of a novel by the German Volckmer
Here she exposes her doubts, her thoughts, recounts her provocative sessions with Jason, her psychologist whom she considers mediocre, her relationship with K, her toxic mother too, her relationship with her body and her gender. She is “a barking cat”, one of those who go beyond the standardized, imposed framework, trapped in a carnal envelope that does not seem her own. She also has difficulty with her nationality. Consumed with guilt at having to carry the Nazi past as a legacy, an indelible trauma that haunts her. So she dreamed of being Hitler…
For her return to the theater after six years, the actress wanted to adapt the first novel by the German Katharina Volckmer, “Jewish Cock” (Grasset), literally “Jewish cock”, this circumcised penis which could give the character this freedom which escapes him. This freedom that the actress, popularized by “Connasse” then the series “Dix pour cent” and whose aura has crossed the Atlantic, has to initiate such a project and bring it to fruition.
From this book with its raw and rough text, fiercely feminist and just as funny, with often black humor and sometimes frontal truthfulness ― “this vagina which will always be an object of fucking” ― she draws, with the director Jonathan Capdevielle, a striking and unique show. A project that she wanted and that they designed together. “She was never afraid of crazy projects,” said the actor and director Sébastien Castro, who took these classes with her. This project is more of a pointed type, but it expresses well the feminist and progressive consciousness which animates it.
While she speaks, Camille Cottin evolves in this universe of purple felt, taking postures, those that one asks of a gynecologist, but not only. Here she is, a pin-up or little girl, languid or walking robotically. We see her dancing, disappearing backstage, swallowed by her large curtains to reappear in a princess dress or wearing starlet sunglasses and a huge straw hat with very wide brims…
An extraordinary spectacle
It seems that there is sometimes a gap between what she does and says, as if to better underline the dissociation between the body and the mind… Still a gap between the softness of the tone, the sensuality of the voice and the words sometimes violent… It looks like a puppet, too, an art mastered by the director trained at the National School of Puppetry Arts. He is present every evening, in control, lending his voice to the doctor who responds sparingly to his patient's questions.
How can you depict on a stage what is happening in a head that is emptying over memories and reflections? These two have their visual and organic, intriguing proposal, a crossing in which Camille Cottin engages physically and leaves a curious sensation as she ends with her last words: “Let's leave this place before it is invaded by clowns. Let’s hold hands, let’s be warriors.” Certainly, we saw an extraordinary spectacle.
“The meeting”at the theater of Northern Foodsuntil January 25, Tuesday to Saturday at 8 p.m., 4 p.m. Sunday. From 10 to 36 euros. Not recommended for under 16s. Complete. On tour in around fifteen theaters from January 31 (Annecy) to April 8 (Tarbes). In Île-de-France, February 7 at l'Onde in Vélizy-Villacoublay (Yvelines) and February 13 at the Théâtre du Vésinet (Yvelines).
