I fell in love with the text Bashir Lazhar , Evelyne Pearson Education Canada, required reading in a required course. To my amazement, it was really good. The monologue of the Algerian uprooted, replacing a Grade 6 class in Montreal, moved me. The twenty-five pages of documents filed past me at full speed.
But tonight mausus I had no desire to leave my house to go see the play at the theater. I even called the ticket office, where my ticket is refundable. Which was of course not. I took the bus, hidden in my scarf, Louise Attaque loudly in my ears. I thought it would be over quickly, the play does in an hour and a half. And then, Periscope, the seats are not reserved. First come, first served. I'm late, I'm told that it was perfect. I would take a seat at the back in a corner, and I was sleeping.
I left the bus, I put Salaberry. In front of the theater on the sidewalk, a shiny caught my attention. A huge oak leaf, golden under the light of the lamppost. I am the appropriate. She sparkled. Even inside the theater, when the neon lights have given him his brownish color of dead leaves, he remained as a flash, a reflection of visible gold at a certain angle. I laid on a table, hoping that someone else notices her beauty. I did not want to keep it and run the risk of throwing it away.
I then lined up until the doors opened. To my surprise, I was in the twenty first arrived. I read the Manual de Zoologia fantastica Borges during those few minutes of waiting and I was charmed by these short texts so vivid, so intense! Chimeras, centaurs and other mermaids lived under my eyes. I left already the real world, to open my imagination. Already, my fatigue of the evening flew.
When the doors opened, another surprise (to me who had never been to Periscope): no scene. The actor plays on the floor where the first row of seats. I changed my strategy: rather than seeking a dark corner or take a nap in peace, I decided to get me to be careful and I'm stuck in the middle of the first row. For my feet on the ground, move to the rhythm of not acting. To experience the play without disturbing heads before me.
The play is Bashir Lazhar speaking. Mostly, he talks to his class. He is behind his desk or in front of the table, and is open to the sea of students before him. Ie, us. He asks questions to her students and the public for not holding up your hand and try to answer them. Few laughs.
But this is not a funny piece, despite the many opportunities it offers us guffaw. It is a deep and intelligent text on justice, society, violence. And the actor makes the character wonderfully soft and dreamy and idealistic Bashir Lazhar. His eyes sparkle, his mouth wrinkles or stretches some bosses for his trouble and his smiles. And ours too. Mine too, anyway. Sitting a few paces from him, without hindrance, I become the mirror of his emotions. And it's good Bieu wriggling in my belly, all emotions that!
For an hour and a half, he speaks, he speaks, he is silent, filled with silences in Arabic music, reports on the war, testimonies of immigrants. He turns the pages of a big black book, a blackboard you can erase and which offers the possibility again, not like the nights that end but never does again.
And when he turns the last page, after sent home from school, after the fable of the little girl who drowned in the ocean, according to the testimony of a child that Bashir has managed to touch when on the last page, appears the word "end" when everyone gets up in one movement to applaud, standing magnificent performance which has just been delivered, I cry. I feel my crooked smile, my teeth biting my lip to keep it from trembling, my eyes crinkle and try to smile to thank Mr. Denis Gavereaux for offering us this cultural melting pot of emotions, but all my body wants is to cry in peace. Cry long. Give a tip to the actor who We thank bowing to us as it is we who should bow our heads.
I look back and I still cry.
My god it was beautiful.
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