LE FIGARO 

Benjamin Puech

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"Classical music, a drop of dew"

"We decrease in the eighth stanza", slices Fredj, to whom we owe

stage at the Châtelet and at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels. Each one annotates his

partition. Setting the music on the text is far from easy. "You are not enough

inside, ”he says to the detainees. Professionals, Emma Bazin,

the formidable Fanny Sintès and Jacques Mazeran (the air of Jean Carmet,

the sadder eye) are there to support them and give them a reply. Even if he

forgets her lines again, Hadyl, wide glasses on her nose and PSG jersey on

the back, assures "to have worked". "I'm a little stressed," says Byzon, from the top of

his meter eighty draped in a boubou.

Olivier Fredj wants to give a gypsy air to certain notes by Schubert, some

Goran Bregovic thing from Emir Kusturica's films. Percussion, Valentin 

Dubois gets caught up in the game. Producer Matias Aguayo has been depositing himself since his

console, a modern and electric color on the melodies.

Hadyl is delighted to have discovered the romantic composer: “Classical music resembles

for me a drop of sweet dew, ”he ignites. His friends are laughing.

And him to recalibrate them: "When we listen to Jul and Rohff all day, the least

that one can say, it is that that changes a little, not? "

Sofiane's monologue impresses. "Memory is not sterile, so that

the nightmare does not repeat itself, ”he says. His words will stay in ours,

memory, and in that of his friend Haïss: "It was magnificent, wallah (" I

swear ", in Arabic, Editor's note)!" The actors recite lines written during workshops

carried out by the Maison de la poésie in Samu Social centers, in

Ehpad, within Meaux prison, or in the mobile support unit

and palliative care at Pitié-Salpêtrière. Then compiled and remodeled

by Olivier Fredj. “They have an expertise on the time that we don't have.

rediscovered thanks to them the beauty and the richness of simple things ”, he confesses.

Before venturing into a more political discourse that is more difficult to follow.

Slip to the edge of the stage

In recent weeks, elderly people who live in nursing homes have

sent by letter of interpretation advice. "And life advice", specifies

Irene Muscari. We suspect that it was not a long quiet river, this

life. But formal ban on asking questions about their background.

We just know that they were sentenced to at least five years behind bars.

"We work for prevention and reintegration, prefers to detail the coordinator.

The theater calls for a group dynamic, demands respect for

rules and listen to others. ” Behavior and motivation helped to

make a selection from more than seventy applications. Yet playing is not going

no self for the prisoners. "The representation that will be given within

of the center works them a little, ”confides Irène Muscari. They play their image there.

Despite their mischievous, sometimes childish air, these young people are aware of the

of the project. “There are few moments of real expression in prison,” says Hadyl.

Watch is a way of expressing ourselves, of laughing, of speaking as we please ”. that

do they think of becoming an actor? None of them say no. It would even be too beautiful

to be true. Byzon, fan of The Scam with Newman and Redford, has already

writes a screenplay. "We are happy to be able to give another image of

detention, ”smiles Hadyl. Is an escape, moreover, to be feared during the

representation in Bobigny? According to Irène Muscari, it's not really a

cause for concern.

If, as the Watch proves, the theater can bring prisoners, the reverse

is not wrong. Admittedly, the tone of these still amateur actors sometimes remains artificial,

but when they express themselves at the top of their lungs, their sincerity touches. Is this

due to their experience? There's an intensity in their voice, which manages to break through

an astonishing path on the cold and dreamy melancholy of the Voyage d'Hiver.

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