The Law of the Black Body at the National Theatre of Nice

Tuesday, 7 February 2023

Published on the website : Resonances Lyriques Org

Alexandre Diot-Tchéou and Muriel Mayette-Holtz ©Sophie Boulet

The law of the black body... a title that encompasses the question of the entire universe! A title that questions the essence of this world, the essence of being, the essence of life...: the TRUTH. A title staged by questions, in questions, for questions, dozens of questions. All these questions that we hear, that we shout, and that twist our guts until we know.

We don't really talk about physical sciences in this play by Félicien Juttner, an exceptional playwright with a sense of rhythm and emotion and an admirable director. We only mention them. We experience them above all, imprisoned in this law of the black body, black because it absorbs the visible light it receives, all the light, without reflecting or transmitting it. We feel it, we see it in the school library enveloped in its virtual flames, leaving only a black hole of questions and doubts. We grasp it in the smoke-filled walls that cage the characters in their lives, in their isolated truths. Several angles of approach, several approaches from the same angle...

A "black" body... a glimmer of hope: if its temperature is high enough, the radiation it emits reaches the spectrum of light and can be seen by our eyes... It would be so simple if the truth of the flames could illuminate the yes or no of the person answering the oral questions of the headmistress of the establishment, the headmistress of knowledge.  It would be so simple if the truth could be obtained by the yes or no of the person being questioned by the police officer. The police would like to know. The director would like to understand. The mothers of the accused teenagers would like to breathe a sigh of relief. But you can't blow on a fire to put it out!

In this play, "we're not talking about love, we're talking about truth! " So laments one of the mothers facing her teenager suspected of starting the fire. Yet, how much love is written, how much love is shouted, how much love is misunderstood on the stage of this authentic Théâtre National de Nice, clad in stone. "It is death that separates a son from his mother," nothing else!

The Law of the Black Body is not just a police investigation, not just an exquisite episode of Sherlock Holmes, where cinematic time bubbles collide and leave us perplexed. It is much more than that: it is a philosophical piece! Not the kind of philosophy that refers to the great philosophers and their usual "jargon". No. Real philosophy, authentic, pure, universal philosophy. The kind that questions every being in the depths of their being, the cultivated as well as the cultivator. What, then, is truth???

Marie Hervé's dark, shifting sets and transparent panels metaphorically represent this relentless quest for clarity. Like a cinematic tracking shot, the different shots approach and retreat, zoom in and out on reality, realities; they turn and divert the different frames: front, back... Open, closed, dark, lit, each frame constantly illustrates this nagging questioning, counterpointed by Cyril Giroux's music.

Deeply moved by these scenes, which anyone can relate to, whether directly or indirectly, from their childhood or adolescence, we are pierced by the authentic performances of the mothers and their children. Muriel Mayette-Holtz, in the role of the working-class mother, pierces us with her exasperated love for her teenage son with breathtaking accuracy! Her son, played by Alexandre Diot-Tchéou, reflects back to us with immense finesse the guilt of our often hasty judgements: "Mum, I love you, I want you to believe me". Anne Loiret chills us in the role of the headmistress mother, with her accusatory morality and lack of evidence. Simon Jacquard, in the role of her son, leaves us with a lasting impression, long after the show, of the distress in the face and voice of a teenager prey to his mother's demands. There is no father in either of these families. Only an inspector and narrator, Erwan Daouphars, sets the pace of the case, fuelling the mystery with metaphysical and philosophical reflections. "We think we say what we see, but it is what we see that says what we are."

A show that leaves us speechless, in an extraordinary space-time, where the lights that usually illuminate events (Pascal Noël) plunge into the abyss of our bodies, black with truths...

Nathalie AUDIN