2023-04-17 11:24:43
“It is very necessary to spend money on wigs, when you can wear hair of your own, which costs nothing! » In nearly four centuries, how many generations have laughed at this remonstrance of Harpagon to his son Cléante, whom he accuses of too onerous coquetry? Ribbons and hairpieces went out of fashion a long time ago, but Harpagon’s projections continue to hit the mark, like her delight in this memorable scansion of “without dowry”implacable argument, according to him, to give his daughter Élise in marriage to an old man.
Molière’s genius in portraying this man sick with his passion for money has crossed time and scenes without losing its relevance but, precisely because it is firmly anchored in the collective imagination, attacking this play so often climbed is always a challenge.
A spirit of trestles
After the success of his Bourgeois gentlemanat the Opéra-Comique, Jérôme Deschamps seizes The Miser with a radical bias: the top is bare, with the exception of the side legs and a harmonious painted canvas in the background. It emanates from this counting a spirit of trestles which places the text and the game in majesty.
The director slips with delight into the skin of Harpagon, in love with his famous cassette, a domestic tyrant who loves his ten thousand crowns more than his own children and decides their adventure with brutality. Black bonnet placed on a few white locks, he wears an astonishing outfit so designed that he makes an exaggeratedly potbellied abdomen jump at the slightest of his outbursts, accentuating the comic relief of the character. With forceful mimicry and rumblings, Jérôme Deschamps plunges without restraint into a clownish register.
This communicative grain of madness permeates the two and a quarter hours of the show. From unexpected falls to impromptu songs, the delicious cast that surrounds Deschamps gives the piece the flavor of a generous but refined pastry. A treat orchestrated among others by Lorella Cravotta who, in the role of Frosine, the wedding maker, performs a beautifully crazy score.
The colossus Vincent Debost plays an extraordinary Maître Jacques (forced by the stinginess of his master to combine the jobs of coachman and cook), while the young people, Élise, her lover Valère, Cléante and her betrothed Mariane (also coveted by the old Harpagon) are carried by a great team of actors, Bénédicte Choisnet, Geert Van Herwijnen (alternating with Bastien Chavrot), Stanislas Roquette and Louise Legendre.
Yves Robin excels sometimes as Dame Claude, sometimes as Maître Simon. Completed by Fred Epaud and Hervé Lassïnce, this dazzling troupe vibrates in unison with a beautiful energy turned towards the public.
irresistible scenes
The costumes, signed Macha Makeïeff, offer a baroque wardrobe, with doublets, collarettes and skirts gathered at the waist. This historical aesthetic intermixed with extravagant and colorful prints nourishes the festive atmosphere of a show which, leading this monument of the repertoire at full speed, indulges in a joyful celebration of the theatre.
Without artifice, with an exacerbated art of comedy, the staging of Jérôme Deschamps lets us hear the language of Molière in all its subtleties, a fierce mirror of unchanged human skews. Impossible to resist the pathetic despair of Harpagon discovering the disappearance of his fortune, «I am lost, I am murdered! They cut my throat, they stole my money!». Nor the misunderstanding that then confronts him with Valère. The latter understands that the Miser accuses him of having robbed him of his daughter, defends himself by confessing the love, «a god who bears the excuses for all that he causes to be done”, who animates it for Élise. However, Harpagon, using the same amorous vocabulary, does not speak of his daughter but of his beloved cassette!
In this well-known scene, interpreted here with remarkable freshness, two visions of the world are opposed: the sterile lure of profit (which will make Harpagon’s attraction to Mariane vanish in the blink of an eye) and the force feelings. A conflict of values with ever more current resonances.
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A career in the service of the art of laughter
Jérôme Deschamps was born in 1947 in Neuilly-sur-Seine. His family includes some illustrious personalities: the actor Hubert Deschamps and the filmmaker Jacques Tati.
A graduate of the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art, he spent three years at the Comédie-Française before founding a theater company in 1978 with Macha Makeïeff.
Together, they create more than 20 shows including La Famille Deschienswhich will inspire the hit series The Deschiansbroadcast on Canal+ between 1993 and 1998.
Between 2007 and 2015, Jérôme Deschamps took over the management of the Opéra-Comique in Paris.
In 2016, he created his company, with which he staged Bouvard and Pécuchetby Flaubert, in 2017, and The Bourgeois Gentleman in 2022.
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