Stephan Eicher, “Alone on stage” in music and tender stories in theaters – rts.ch

A new project, new guitar. This one is an acoustic model, rather slim in size and noble wood, unearthed right next to the Théâtre de Carouge, the location of his new creation. We could write books about the very special relationship between a musician and his instrument.

For this “Stephan Eicher alone on stage”, his companion every evening is therefore called Martin. With it, the Bernese singer explores a folk vein that suits him well, stripping his repertoire and occasionally reminding us that a good song can be played in all ways, it will always remain a good song. That evening, his were signed Stephan Eicher and Philippe Djian, the fruit of a partnership of almost thirty-five years.

A theatrical concert

If “Stephan Eicher alone on stage” sounds like a concert, it is more than that. For example the title of a book written by a certain Eicher. Or this decor which is divided into three parts mounted on rails with large speakers which turn out to be practical jokes. “Alone on stage” is also this teleprompter on a giant screen which does as it pleases and tells stories, anecdotes, confessions. Almost theater in short. With its most intimate interpreter as the main character: Stephan Eicher.

During confinement, the musician then lived in France with significantly stricter health rules than in Switzerland. He had to find loopholes so as not to go around in circles in his Camargue house. One of them was the theater and a very particular work: “The Conference of Things” by François Gremaud, with the extraordinary actor Pierre Mifsud reciting this river digression (nine hours in full version).

>> A lire : Theater delivered to your home thanks to the return of “Conference of Things”

Stephan Eicher was captivated by this theater with its delicious humor, by this way of keeping an audience in suspense with next to nothing. Which is already a lot, said this prankster from Devos. Months later, François Gremaud and Stephan Eicher met after a concert at the Olympia in Paris. The seed of this “Alone on Stage” could germinate.

“We share at least this: a taste for bad jokes. And we agree on the fact that a bad joke is worth a broken friendship,” laughs Stephan Eicher. A director whose references range from Snoopy to Gilles Deleuze, François Gremaud co-wrote this show and helped Stephan Eicher to stage what is akin to a sort of theatrical concert. François Gremaud, you may know him through his series of homages to classic works: “Phèdre!”, “Giselle…” and “Carmen.”. Note the punctuation of the titles, it is very important.

Through the times

“Stephan Eicher alone on stage” crosses the eras, from Grauzone to “Ode”, keeping the focus on French-speaking songs, moving from acoustic guitar to modest piano with a detour via his old machines and an accordion with a Bernese family past.

We knew Stephan Eicher was fond of new experiences. Approaching his repertoire again and again like a mountaineer who finds new climbing routes on his favorite mountain. There was the Traktorkestar brassband, the musical automatons or even its “Radeau de la Méduse” style tour, its concerts with a chamber orchestra, plus its side steps with a German-speaking repertoire by Martin Suter or its surf-jazz covers of the Bernese bard Mani Matter with guitarist Roman Nowka.

Here he is today a singer and storyteller, interpreter of his own character, the mischievous mustache of the stage showman not unhappy to travel the French-speaking theaters showing a winter season in the middle of a program more accustomed to comedies, tragedies and other farces.

Thierry Sartoretti/ld

“Stephan Eicher alone on stage”. A show created at the Carouge theater (GE) to be seen again at the Théâtre Equilibre, Fribourg, on November 12 and 13, 2024; Théâtre du Jura, Delémont (JU), December 7 and 8, 2024, Théâtre Le Reflet, Vevey (VD), January 10 and 11, 2025 and Théâtre Benno Besson in collaboration with l’Echandole, Yverdon-les-Bains (VD) , January 24 and 25, 2025.