ARCHIVES 2010 / Un nid pour quoi faire

"Royal court in exile in the mountains seeks image consultant, fully equipped room in atypical chalet, artists please abstain." This was the ad to which Robinson replied, Robinson, the hero of Olivier Cadiot's novel that Ludovic Lagarde and his troupe of the Comédie de Reims have brought to the stage today. And here is Robinson, projected into an improbable kingdom, governed by a nutty Majesty, impeccably incarnated by Laurent Poitrenaux, utterly funny and cynical. In this monarch of divine right, in his winter sport chalet-chateau, everything is imperilled by the inherent pressures of contemporary life. The court is in marching order, led by a mistress with an iron fist in a velvet glove, ruling the minor staff while dreaming about American TV series. But all the subjects are stretched, or rather twisted, between the traditional service of His Majesty and their place - if not their fantasies - as today's men and women: the chamberlain sledges and takes himself for a salesman, the great squire straddles bobsleighs and draws logos, the royal doctor practices alternative medicine, the royal princesses wear pink dresses while inventing destinies of executive women for themselves. In the midst of this court as outmoded as it is filled with techno music, Robinson, the character-common thread of Olivier Cadiot's novels, trails his extra-lucid thoughts and his surprising comparisons. He looks for a nest there, but above all finds a principality of comedy, seized by delirium when it isn't debauchery, where tyranny is measured centimetre by centimetre at the level of the armchairs, where power makes eyes at communication and the court system hesitates between the ludicrous farce and the doors that slam in a boulevard theatre play. However, we must pay attention: the bursts of laughter are deadly. This king, these courtiers, this language of flattery and of satire, these desires between leisure and mass culture, this court ogling at corporate governance is here and now! ADB