2023-09-22 13:51:00
Since his cartoon “Adieu Monsieur Haffmann” and his four Molières in 2018, Jean-Philippe Daguerre unveils each year, at the Avignon Off Festival, his new piece, which can then be seen in Paris. After “The Ortiz Family”, “Le Petit Coiffeur”, “Le Voyage de Molière” for which he wrote the texts and direction, “les Vivants” or “la Chambre des marvels”, which he adapted and/or directed , this summer we discovered the excellent “Huitième Ciel”, with Florence Pernel, now showing at Théâtre Actuel-La Bruyèrein Paris.
Crossed by a lovely sensitivity, his theater is as generous as the boy is bon vivant, overflowing with humanity and provoking beautiful emotions, often with humor and always that little touch of magic, that spark of life specific to revealing the luminous through the darkness. He has a side, Daguerre, which has been a hit for years. And spread.
Jean-Philippe Daguerre’s theater is as generous as the boy is bon vivant. LP/Delphine Goldsztejn
On the big screen, first. After the adaptation of “Haffmann”, in 2021, with Daniel Auteuil and Gilles Lellouche, that of “Petit Coiffeur”, scheduled for early 2024, by Mounia Meddour (“Papicha”), “Le Huitième ciel” is already the subject of of two proposals…
Abroad, then. Translated and produced in a dozen countries, “Haffmann” has just been premiered at the Royal Theater in Bath, England. “Being a fan of Molière translated into the language of Shakespeare is flattering. This is where Florian Zeller’s The Father began (which the Frenchman then adapted and for which he received two Oscars), it’s a good omen”, relishes the person concerned who nothing predisposed him to becoming a figure of the theater and to pocket the Molière of the French-speaking author. “I am a self-taught provincial who has done little study, who has never really read,” slips the native of Montauban (Tarn-et-Garonne). He discovered the stage at the MJC in his town and at the college theater club “as a possible form of entertainment”.
“It was on the rock scene that I got my kicks. I wasn’t very talented as a singer, yet I managed to get everyone on board. »
Jean-Philippe Daguerre
As a spectator, it is in front of “At the theater tonight” that he learns. He experiences culture vicariously through the magazine Télérama, to which the family subscribes. However, following a baccalaureate “painfully obtained” – “I got 3 in writing in French, and 9 in oral, on Dom Juan; I took revenge, I set him up” — this is the path he chooses. After an initial fee offered by the person running the workshop at high school, he “let it happen”, briefly entering the Bordeaux conservatory, then arriving in Paris, where his father had just been promoted.
He is around twenty years old. A small recurring role in “Douce France”, a series on TF 1, others in the subsidized sector, appearances in the cinema – notably in “Beaumarchais, l’insolent” by Édouard Molinaro – allow him to survive. At the same time, in the evening, he has fun on the alternative scene with the rock group Les Facéties. For more than ten years, he was one of the singers and above all the organizer of “great Spanish inns”.
“We always had lots of guests, I wrote the transitions,” he remembers. It was abundant, I continued my profession as an actor on the side, but it was on the rock scene that I really enjoyed myself. I wasn’t very talented as a singer, yet I managed to get everyone on board. My authority as a director, the confidence that that requires, it was rock that brought them to me. »
From this furious and joyful era, he draws a certain energy and singularity placed at the service of shows for young audiences and classics. Several Molière, for example with Le Grenier de Babouchka – the company he has run with his wife, Charlotte Matzneff, for twenty years –, most of which are still on display.
“Since I was little, I have been like a blotter of other people’s emotions. »
Jean-Philippe Daguerre
Exploring Molière allowed him to approach a culture that had escaped him. “At school, I read the summaries, I didn’t have the curiosity to read the book,” he remembers. Getting a foot in Molière opened me up to all the writings, and I immersed myself in it like someone starved to death. » However, the feeling of illegitimacy is tenacious, despite success. “I still have the complex of the provincial redneck who wonders what happened to him,” he admits, a bit like a frog who has become Prince Charming. »
He has a sensitivity to him that he has learned to use. “I’m hyper-emotional, there’s not a day that goes by without me crying and laughing, since I was little I’ve been like a blotter of other people’s emotions. » Directing allows him to share them, as does writing, “for which I thought I had no talent,” he admits. “By feeding myself, I managed to have the necessary tools, to put the right words to these emotions. »
“I am hyper-emotional, there is not a day without me crying and laughing too,” confides Jean-Philippe Daguerre. LP/Delphine Goldsztejn
This learning will go through a certain number of adaptations. “Aladdin”, “Zorro”, “Alice in Wonderland”, “The Magic Flute”… Rewriting gives him confidence. Enough to attempt a first creation, “Cupidon n’a pas dit no”, partly adapted from a short film he had directed, then another co-written with his wife Charlotte Matzneff, “We are a woman”. Next comes “Farewell Mr. Haffmann”.
It is early 2015. Daguerre is in Switzerland, in the apartment of Annie Chaplin, whom he directed in “La Belle Vie” by Jean Anouilh, when the attack on Charlie Hebdo occurs. “I knew some of the victims, the mother of my first daughter worked at Charlie,” he confides. He is upset, but he writes. Crying. “I wrote the dinner scene in one day, the next day. We are always connected in life, and in particular to the misfortune that can interfere. »
“Charlotte and I became furious with work when Laurence, my first wife, fell ill. It was like a desire to survive. »
Jean-Philippe Daguerre
He knows well that misfortune can act as a vital impulse. “With Charlotte, we became furious with work when Laurence, my first wife, fell ill, it was like a desire to survive, the need to offer her roles too. » Haffmann wrote it for her, “so she can play”. She will not be able to take part and disappears while the play is being performed in Avignon.
“This mourning is like our star on Haffmann,” he breathes, moved. If it hadn’t been for his cancer, I would never have had a career, I know that. She was 33 years old when the disease broke out, at that age you think you’re immortal. So, you make do to find life, and theater saved us psychologically. It allowed him to last thirteen years. And the more fighter she was, the more she made us want to do shows, and vice versa. »
“My success comes from misfortune, I’m sure of it,” he assures. I wasn’t the real nerd, I partied, went to bed and got up late and didn’t like working. That’s what makes the difference, the work. And I didn’t have my work power before. Today, this love of creation makes me come alive, but I had to be confronted a little early with illness and death to realize the privilege of telling stories. » From now on, by creating his own stories, he often pays homage to his dearly departed in each of his pieces. “It still allows me to bring them to life,” he summarizes.
We feel this deep affection he has for his characters. As a first-rate alchemist, he transforms lead into shard of life and knows how to hit every time. This first success confirms him in this new path. “It gave me confidence, writing is a joy that I had never granted myself, now I want to write all the time. » His next play, “Du coal dans les veins”, is already ready and will be produced next summer in Avignon. “Bringing friends together to tell a story to other one-night stand friends who are the spectators, it touches me, it gives meaning to my life. » At the cinema too? “I would never have thought of writing a play ten years ago, I mightn’t say that I wouldn’t direct a film,” he smiles. In any case, I feel capable of it. »
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