Le Jardin Alphonse, at the Michel Theater

Didier Caron is the author and director of the Alphonse's Garden, a play on the bill of the Michael Theater for a few more days. A bitter-sweet comedy played as if in the open air, but imagined as an in camera setting. Didier Caron and eight other comedians interpret a very funny story with drawers, where all the characters reveal in turn their shadow, in the shade of a tree.

After the death of old Alphonse, close friends and the Lemarchand family gather in his garden for lunch. Magali takes the chance to ask her father about a question that has been bothering her for years. The answer is unexpected.

The small secrets as the big ones will then burst under the umbrella pine of Alphonse's garden.

 

The scene of the Michael Theater has metamorphosed into a a bucolic setting, imperturbable and reassuring. It is indeed in the middle of a garden, that the characters are transformed into the most beautiful people;a tree as beautiful as it is imposing, The Garden of Alphonse is a true family saga that watches over the tranquility of a family and a couple of friends. At least in appearance.

For its benevolent and protective branches will quickly turn into a tree a heavy lid placed on a real pot in full boilingThe most buried resentments, and the most buried secrets, will then resurface one after the other.

The author knew how to give a real role for each actor, and thus a real importance to each character. Some of them are obviously more endearing or moving, while others are very unsympathetic or even (momentarily) detestable. To make evolve on a stage, a small dozen characters is an audacious challenge, because it requires a particularly fluid staging.

And it is successful here, especially since there is a good balance between the lines and the situations.

The dramatic stakes of each protagonist are thus particularly well exposed through his past, his present but also his future.

This comedy reserves therefore to the spectators many twists and turns, because the mechanics of the play is rather well oiled. But on the other hand, such a mechanism appears here and there as repetitive, even if the plot or rather the intrigues follow each other with great interest. The narrative construction is indeed a beautiful exercise in style, far from being easy, but which attenuates in the form, the legitimate astonishment as for the progression of a story.

And in this magnificent setting, a few extra sets of lights for this sky that darkens as the story progresses would have been interesting.

If Alphonse's garden is the place of all resentments in the open air, it is also a comedy sometimes light, sometimes irresistible. When Karina Marimon, a terrific actress, launches throughout the play its unexpected and scathing lines, it’s always for the greatest joy of the spectators ! And his character, between naivety and kindness, weakens the tension that regularly reigns in this garden… at least momentarily. And the pleasure that the actors take on the stage of the Michel Theater, to interpret their own stories in the History is visible and communicative.

If I were a tree, I would be…

Le Jardin d'Alphonse is a true family saga the story is traced over more than an hour and a half, where the tongues are painfully loosened. And comfortably installed, the spectators are facing an open window on this garden, and are witnesses of the successive denouements as inextricable as the roots of a tree. As for the characters, no face is represented on the poster of the play, but there are as many trees drawn as roles ! That is to say 9 in total and under which one can read the names of the nine actors. It is original and catchy, especially when we have fun once the show is over, to link each of the nine trees to the character traits of each of the nine characters !

In the evening at 9:00 pm
And find the whole program of the Michael Theater here !