Au théâtre on meurt pour rien : essai ; suivi de Le plancher sous la moquette : théâtre
The essay Au théâtre on meurt pour rien. Raconter la mort sans coupable, entre Maeterlinck et Chaurette (On stage death is useless. Recounting of death without culprit, between Maeterlinck and Chaurette) compare different dramatic uses of death testimony under the perspective of Nietzsche’s genealogy of memory recording. To illustrate the assumption of a classic function given to the death witness – making sense out of death by locking it in a scenic quest for justice −, the essay summons typical characters in Eschyle, Shakespeare and Racine. Then, plays by the modern playwright Maeterlinck (Intérieur) and the contemporary playwright Normand Chaurette (Fragments d’une lettre d’adieu lus par des géologues, Stabat Mater II) are interpreted as inscribing their whole plot in a death term where no definite culprit is needed; on the other hand, further reading reveals different values given in both proposition to triviality and strangeness, as to the singularity of characters.  Le plancher sous la moquette (The floor under the carpet) is a play in three acts and three levels of speech for two actresses. Three couples of sisters come back into the living room of an apartment, once a detective agency that remained printed in their child memories. Thematically, the play moves the classic bind in "film-noir" between investigation and the city, by introducing the time interferences associated with ghosts. Each one of the three acts cast a shadow over the two others by re-enacting the same elements on a different but strangely similar tone, thus bringing the audience to doubt the existence of what is not on stage: the past, the other rooms, Montreal. The logical longing the audience has for the truth will lead it to discover that the scenes don’t enlighten the dark, but reveal that death never escapes the coarseness of memory.
Théâtre Maeterlinck Chaurette Theater Time Ghosts Death testimony Guilt