ARCHIVES 2009 / Le Livre d'or de Jan

Jan is no longer here. Absent, vanished, deceased? Erased from daily life, but still alive for his friends who, through fragments, snatches and pieces, recount who he was. In this guestbook that they fill out for him, the words have a double meaning as they retrace the figure of the missing man and relate, at the same time, who he was to them. Jan's personality is also revealed in the relations he had with his companions in life. It is Jan's presence in the world that becomes the question, his strolls, his amorous or amicable encounters, his desires, his needs, his frustrations, his enthusiasms, the sum of experiences that comprised him. Each one therefore has his or her Jan, a part of a diffracted and totally nuanced portrait that Hubert Colas creates in the moment in which it is shown, in this immediacy that makes it possible to form a fragile relationship with the spectator. The writing here is intrinsically linked to the actor's body: it only comes alive through this incarnation, it is only emotion because it is uttered by flesh-and-blood beings. A polymorphic writing, sometimes free and unbridled, sometimes confined by a restrictive punctuation that makes each short sentence a small bomb aiming at the one who listens and looks. Jan no longer exists, but this absence must not prevent his friends from keeping themselves vigilant, in a state of alert facing the incredibly strong temptation of the void. Hubert Colas' theatre is in fact a theatre that constantly calls itself into question, with all the risks that this brings with it, without any safety net whatsoever. Jan is no longer here, but he continues to live before us and when we get close to him, he holds out a mirror to us... Wouldn't the other above all be another us? JFP