Paris (AFP)

It is a show that is a "Hamilton" French, the hit Broadway singing diversity. But it is also the story of suburban youth who own a prestigious Paris scene thanks to star rapper Abd Al Malik.

The Théâtre du Châtelet, which reopened on September 13 after about three years of closure for work, starts its season on Saturday with a creation, "The Righteous", based on the play of the same name by Albert Camus, played for the first time 70 years ago at the Théâtre Hébertot in Paris.

The adaptation, which runs until October 19, promises to be singular, if only at the level of distribution: like "Hamilton", whose cast is mainly African-Americans, Latinos and Asians, "The Righteous" will be played by a majority of French actors from North African and African origins, something unusual on the Paris scene.

"The Righteous", which speaks of a group of revolutionaries in Russia of 1905 planning an attack to free themselves from "tyranny", "highlights a universal and contemporary issue," says Abd Al Malik, who is the first staging.

"We are talking about revolt nowadays but what does the political commitment mean in 2019, does the end justify the means?", Adds the author, rapper and director of 44, who is also according to the Châtelet first black director engaged by the theater since its creation in 1862.

"So when I put on the French scene of Algerian, Congolese, Cambodian, Asian and white origin, it is not so much to make + diversity +, it is to say that we are all connected, that our stories are interlaced ", continues the artist himself of Congolese origin.

- "The people of the periphery" -

The rapper poet and follower of Sufism describes the show as a "musical tragedy": hip-hop, slam and rap punctuate the text of Camus thanks to the compositions of Bilal, his younger brother and composer, and Wallen, one rare French rap composers.

But this is not a simple setting: for eight months, Abd Al Malik worked with young people from Aulnay-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis) to reflect on the philosophical scope of the play .

In the show, he summons them in the form of chorus declaiming aphorisms that "echo" the text of Camus and represent their vision of the world.

"The text has brought them back to issues that concern them: we talked about police violence, migration crisis, neighborhoods that are set aside," says Abd Al Malik, who released this summer his book "Wicked Injuries" where he evokes a French youth who loves culture and comes from the suburbs and immigration.

"These people, I call them + the people on the periphery +, the people from the suburbs, from the countryside we do not listen to, we do not see, and when we see them on the Parisian scenes, it's is caricatural, "he says.

- Camus, "a big brother" -

For him, the fact that these young people are on the stage of the Châtelet, with the support of the Théâtre de la Ville, is highly symbolic. "But that does not mean that we offer a culture at a discount," he insists.

"Les Justes" is "a project that summarizes all our ambitions," says Ruth Mackenzie, co-artistic director of the Châtelet with Thomas Lauriot-dit-Prévost. "Everyone has the right to come to this theater but also to be on stage," says the British nominee in 2017.

She describes the young people of Aulnay-sous-Bois as "transformed" by experience. "They are so proud, so happy, it's their theater, they take ownership of the stage."

For Abd Al Malik, a Camus enthusiast who grew up in a public housing project in Strasbourg and spoke in interviews about petty crime, the project also has a personal impact.

"Like Camus, I was raised by a single mother, the culture ripped me to my condition and I confronted the Parisian intelligentsia, I feel he is a big brother who gives me advice."

© 2019 AFP