His loved ones will not be jealous, but André Robitaille has two passions that he will present to the public this summer. The plays Les Voisins and Le Dîner de cons have a special place in the heart of whoever will stage them.
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“I have a love affair with the text Les Voisins, he confides in a telephone interview. It was by playing Junior in 1988 in this comedy that I was able to participate in the adventure of the show 100 Limite on TQS and the comedy group Les Bleu Poudre. Richard Z. Sirois saw me play and asked me to audition. Moreover, my character in The Blue Powder was directly linked to the one I had embodied in this production. »
He also adapted Le Dîner de cons by Frenchman Francis Veber, another play he knows by heart since he has already performed it.
"I adjusted things because it's happening in Outremont instead of Paris," he says. I reworked the syntax and some cultural references. I have not changed the names or certain expressions. I had my nose in it for a year. »
André Robitaille considers himself a meticulous director.
"I'm very prepared and I pay a lot of attention to detail," he says. I am the maniac of each comma, in order to understand the meaning of the author. I dissect the beast to return it to my hand. These two texts are masterpieces, so I want to keep their musicality and make the most of the writing style. I'm not going to mess everything up. »
solid distributions
The director praised the quality of the two distributions. For Le Dîner de cons, Laurent Paquin, Normand D’Amour, René Simard, Pascale Montreuil, Gabrielle Fontaine and Bernard Fortin will team up.
For Les Voisins, Vincent Graton, Marie-Chantal Perron, Jean-Michel Anctil, Brigitte Lafleur and Tammy Verge will embody the protagonists invented by Louis Saia and Claude Meunier. In addition, Rémi-Pierre Paquin and Pierre-François Legendre will alternate roles, as will Pier-Luc Funk and Mickaël Gouin, as well as Catherine Brunet with Élodie Grenier.
These two works had been postponed due to COVID-19. They are the brainchild of Monarque Productions, the company of André Robitaille and Mario Provencher, which will also present two other plays this summer.
First of all, there is The Big Bend, with Diane Lavallée, Mario Jean, Mylène St-Sauveur and Jean-Carl Boucher at the Hector-Charland Theater in L'Assomption. For his part, Marcel Leboeuf will play again in The Curious Destiny of Marcel at the Beaumont-Saint-Michel Theater, as well as elsewhere.
"It's a pretty tough spring," notes André Robitaille. It's busier than usual. Like other businesses, our agenda has been disrupted by the pandemic. »
Rolling with the money put on the table by him and his partner, Monarque Productions must deal with a hundred freelancers
"You have to do human management, which is, humbly, one of my strengths, specifies the one who became an entrepreneur in 2012. For the figures, it's something else! »
"And I can give work to friends!" “, he adds, laughing.
♦ As of July, Les Voisins will be presented at the Salle Albert-Rousseau in Quebec City, as well as in Gatineau and Brossard. Le Dîner de cons will play at the Maison des arts Desjardins Drummondville, as well as in Brossard and Quebec.
