In the darkness a man whispers.
A voice filled with anguish that will gradually grow louder.
We discover that the man is in a cell, in prison.
This man is Jean Zay, far too little known to the French even though he was a visionary politician, Minister of Education and Fine Arts of the Popular Front, from 1936 to 1939, democrat, resistance fighter, great humanist reformer of education with in particular compulsory schooling at the age of fourteen or sports at school, defender of public school, creator of the baccalaureate, the ENA, the CNRS, numerous museums, the Cannes Film Festival … a breathtaking career of a man gifted with an extraordinary capacity for work.
The character is played by Xavier Béja who adapted for the stage “Memories and Solitude”, a beautifully written, sensitive and moving diary that Jean Zay kept throughout his captivity, from June 1940 to June 1944.
The Vichy regime, in defiance of all truth, condemned him for “desertion in the presence of the enemy”, while he was trying to form a government in exile in North Africa.
He is imprisoned in the Riom remand center.
The theater, through the staging – and that of Michel Cochet is admirably sober, reinforced by the work on the lighting of Simon Lericq and on the sound of Alvaro Bello – the theater therefore allows this incessant back and forth between the present and memories.
While Jean Zay says “Killing time, never until now have these words had such resonance for me”, we go back in time with the projection of archive images that we owe to Dominique Aru and Philippe Varache, illustrating the particularly brilliant past of the politician while offering insight into the 1930s.
Then we return to the present of the prisoner walking back and forth in the cramped space of his cell. Through the narrow window, the sky, and, suddenly, a bird that lands there … and flies away, free.
A tribute to an exceptional man, “complete” adds the title of the piece, who, beyond the melancholy and anger, fighting against his moral and intellectual annihilation, keeps joy and humor until the end.
A great figure in the history of France, who, because he was Jewish, a radical leftist, a freemason, and a member of the resistance to Hitler, was assassinated by the French militia on June 20, 1944.
The President of the Republic, François Hollande, had his ashes transferred to the Pantheon in 2015.
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