Paris (AFP)

After four months of forced shutdown due to confinement, he had "ants in his legs": the first renowned artist to appear in a Parisian theater since March 13, Pierre Palmade wanted "to come back on stage as quickly as possible possible and rediscover the pleasure of making people laugh ".

In the heart of summer and until September 11, in front of a masked audience and a reduced gauge on the stage of a pocket theater, the actor and comedian is back in the shoes of Pierre Mazar, his alter ego and character. fetish of his successful plays.

This time, on the stage of the Théâtre du Marais, one of the smallest in Paris with less than 100 seats usually, the gauge further halved by distance, Pierre Palmade and Benjamin Gauthier, one of the residents of his troop, embody a gay couple in the grip of the torments of everyday life.

In “Assume, bordel!”, A play written during confinement, everything is a pretext for the dispute, with a recurring conflict: Pierre Mazar does not assume his homosexuality in front of Benjamin, an activist convinced of the gay cause.

In May 2019, in We are not lying on France 2, Pierre Palmade made the distinction between "gays who eat gay, who live gay, who laugh gay (...) and homos, people who are homos , but it is not marked on their forehead ". Words that had earned him accusations of homophobia.

"I had not well digested this misunderstanding with the gay community ... With this piece, I hope to be forgiven for people who have misunderstood me", confides to AFP the comedian who has never hid his long journey to accepting his homosexuality.

"This play is not a mea culpa because I did not make any mistakes. I was mostly misunderstood and disproportionately. I cannot be in conflict with my community," he adds.

- "The masked spectators also laugh loudly!" -

Very funny and tender at the same time, "Assume, damn it!" , series of sketches in a gay version of "They love each other", a successful saga on married life written with Muriel Robin, Pierre Palmade addresses all the themes of the gay couple: coming out, marriage, children, the "ex", sexuality ... "

"The game is very interior and deserves to be seen up close. I like the idea of ​​playing this piece intimately in front of a few dozen spectators", says Pierre Palmade. "The public is masked but that does not pose a problem to me. They laugh so loudly! There is no difference. The pleasure of playing trumps anything else," adds the comedian.

During confinement, Pierre Palmade offered short improvised humorous videos on Instagram: "it was very pleasant to find a way to make people laugh from home".

From October, the comedian will resume the tour of "Pierre Palmade plays his sketches": "I resume my favorite sketches with all the forms of humor that I have approached: observation, cynicism and a little poetry too. At 52, I don't play like I did at 20. There is a little gravity that serves humor, I think ... ".

Among the rare shows on view in Paris during the month of August, humor happily wins with several shows every evening at Point Virgule, in the heart of the Marais. At the Grand Point Virgule, in Montparnasse, we play a male version inspired by the TV series "Desperate Housewives".

At the Théâtre de La Huchette, "La Cantatrice Chauve" by Ionesco, performed since 1957 on the same stage, is crowned with the world record for performances with nearly 20,000 and already more than 2 million spectators.

© 2020 AFP