His version of the cult rock opera "Starmania", performed in Paris from November to January and currently on tour, has been so successful that it will resume in the capital from November 2023 to January 2024.

His adaptation of the play "The Dragon" (1944), a political fable about servitude in the face of dictatorship signed by Russian Evgueni Schwartz, plays a last Parisian date Sunday at the Théâtre des Amandiers in Nanterre, before continuing his tour in France.

And in June, the darling of public theater will make his debut at the Paris Opera, where he will present a new production of Gounod's "Romeo and Juliet."

Cinematic atmosphere

On July 26, 2024, the eyes of the world will be riveted on the Seine, where the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games of which he is the artistic director will take place.

"We're going fast, fast, fast. It's wonderful to learn from this unique project, with the constraints and questions that are asked," he told AFP.

We will not know more but one thing is certain: the 41-year-old Rouennais has a sense of spectacle and the public takes full eyes.

"I love the visual experience," he says. "We are not in the theater to see things that necessarily resemble what we can see on television, in the cinema or even in our lives."

On stage, the one who, according to Vanity Fair, "knows what the theater must be in the age of Netflix", nevertheless manages to bring out a cinematic atmosphere.

In "The Dragon", where he first called on a set designer (Bruno de Lavenère), some farcical characters with grimacing facial expressions and exaggerated makeup seem straight out of a Tim Burton film.

French director Thomas Jolly poses during a screening at the Théâtre des Amandiers in Nanterre on March 16, 2023. © JOEL SAGET / AFP

The thunderous sounds, supported by an ingenious play of lights by Antoine Travert and smoke pushed by a fan to evoke the arrival of the three-headed dragon, are worthy of Jurassic Park.

To evoke the servitude of the people, he is inspired by silent German expressionist films, such as "Nosferatu" or "The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari" but also "Metropolis" by Fritz Lang, and the imagery of Soviet and Nazi propaganda, in a gray hue setting.

"Schwartz offers in many places a theater that I call impossible; that's why I want to put on the play," says Thomas Jolly.

On the other hand, he smiles when he reads that some of his productions are reminiscent of "Harry Potter" or "Star Wars": "I have seen neither".

Despite the cinematographic references, the one who had staged a smashing Henry VI of Shakespeare long 18 hours in Avignon likes above all "to stay in the "artisanal", with the lights as a trademark.

"There is no will to perform. The only thing that matters to me is when I say to myself +I don't know how to do it + and to find solutions with the magic box" of the theater, says Thomas Jolly.

That's why he's currently enjoying himself at the Opéra Bastille, with its huge stage, machinery, musicians and choir artists, not to mention the set and costume workshops, which few theatres have.

He remains perplexed by some critics who think he does too much of the show. "My work is well received by the public but, as a result, it is sometimes described as +mainstream+ in a pejorative sense," he says.

"Why can't the spectacular side be just theatrical?"

"I'm not looking for unanimity but, coming from subsidized public theatre, I have to address the widest possible audience, to make them want to be there... and come back," says Thomas Jolly.

© 2023 AFP