THE Biodegradable cabaret will return to Montreal’s Lion d’Or on Saturday before moving to Paris for several months. In an interview, producer Didier Morissonneau admits to being surprised by the longevity of his idea of him, which consists of reading on stage juicy excerpts from the funniest autobiographies of Quebec or French stars.
Presented for the first time in 2008 at Café Cléopâtre, literary cabaret has been based since its inception on a simple but effective concept: paying homage to personalities through their own words, without changing a single line of their writings. An idea that earned its creator numerous complaints, warnings and even death threats, but which still makes the public cry with laughter.
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From left to right, producer Didier Morissonneau, actor Pierre-Luc Brillant and presenter Anaïs Favron.
Since the return in 2022 of Biodegradable Cabaret, interrupted for two years by the pandemic, the producer, director and host of the show feels a real renewed enthusiasm for his proposal, which he finds rather surprising in the current social climate of high sensitivity. It works more than before, even if we go against the grain, explains Didier Morissonneau on the line.
We make trashy, misogynistic, homophobic, racist humor, and that’s what really works. But we are exonerated, since these are not our words, we read comments that are completely out of place, out of time and anachronistic [des vedettes].
The latest Quebec version of the show, which features eight artists, including Pierre-Luc Brillant, Isabelle Blais, Sylvain Larocque and Rémi-Pierre Paquin, will be presented Saturday at 8pm at the Lion d’Or in Montreal.
Marie-Chantal Toupin, Mad Dog Vachon, Michel Girouard and the others
Didier Morissonneau reads many autobiographies a year, to add novelty to his show, but some literary jewels have remained timeless since the first cabaret.
Land [une autobiographie], I have to have a funnier one. There I reached a level of perfection at which I can almost no longer take extracts, she explains.
Among the classics, we highlight among others the autobiography of the wrestler Maurice “Mad Dog” Vachon, A dog’s life in a crazy world (1988), where in one passage he consistently uses the n-word to describe a fight with a black man. Such a frank use of the word controversial that it becomes almost comical, illustrates Didier Morissonneau.
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Or like the book by Julie Lemay, the first winner of the reality show History of the atticwhich offers reflections such as: There are mirrors everywhere, now I understand what the Indians must have felt when their photo was taken.
No personality is untouchable, according to Didier Morissonneau. The selected excerpts stand out for the emptiness of the subject, their absurdity or the oversized ego that they struggle to hide. And in general, the emptier it is, the more interesting it is.
The price of glory
Among the autobiographies recently added to the show is that of Éliane Gamache Latourelle, a young self-proclaimed millionaire who was actually drowning in debt. Or that of the cultural journalist Michel Girouard, who died in 2021, of which Pierre-Luc Brillant reads some extracts.
He wrote a book in 1980 called I live my homosexualitybut there is a [tirade] at one point against bisexuals, explains the show’s producer. Everything he says against bisexuals is what the world said against homosexuals in the 1960s: that they are perverts who have no morals, who only think about sex and who should practically burn in hell.
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Was Didier Morissonneau ever afraid of offending someone? Not really, he says. According to him it is a sort of tax to pay that accompanies fame […] We also read you because you are well known enough for people to read you.
In the 1960s the Cynics said, “If you’re no longer worth a joke, you’re no longer worth anything.”
French personalities suffer torture in Paris
Didier Morissonneau’s idea begins to take off. Last fall, the cabaret premiered in Paris, after Pascal Guillaume, of the Ki M’aime Me Suive company, fell in love with the Quebec version after seeing it at the Lion d’Gold.
It’s exactly the same idea, but they’re just autobiographies of French stars. We have cast a wide net over the last 50 years, she explains, evoking the actress Nadine de Rothschild, the singer Alain Barrière or even Nabilla, a French reality star who is like a Kim Kardashian economic.
The French show will also be presented from 9 January to 28 May at the Comédie Bastille in Paris, with performers of the caliber of Virginie Pradal, Guillaume Clérice and Nicolas Martinez.
Didier Morissonneau hopes that the Biodegradable cabaret will continue its expansion, while remaining in the French-speaking world, as it is less interested in English-speaking stars and the concept has already been realized in Shakespeare’s language. So, after France, Belgium? Belgian stars, to your feathers…
2024-01-06 10:01:33
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