Jean-Claude Grumberg on the paths of childhood

The child (Clotilde Mollet, in cropped pants with pockets) cannot sleep, he keeps questioning his mother (Hervé Pierre). “Mom, why are bad guys bad? ”, is one of the questions. The little boy is afraid of going to pee and finding it in the toilet and the corridor leading to it. “Mamin”, his progenitor, promises to settle their score. “Are you happy?” asks his “Louistiti” who is sucking his thumb. "Me? No,” says the person concerned, as if surprised. “In the morning, when I get up, I swipe the lemon with a cloth and slap my heels with my heels, and when I'm in real pain, I stop myself from crying by pinching myself. very strong siskin.”

Hervé Pierre and Clotilde Mollet, husband and wife in real life, joined forces with their daughter Noémie to transpose Moman (Éditions Actes Sud-Papiers), the book by Jean-Claude Grumberg, to the theater. Directed by the young woman, the show becomes a magnificent hymn to filial love. “Mom, I'm scared”, “Mom, I'm bored”, the kid shares his worries, grows up before our eyes. The modest home is revealed as his “adventures” progress: school, during the day, interviews with his mother, at night. In short, the need to “toughen up”.

Familiar with the things of life and death, the author speaks of the absence of the father, who did not pay the "electric", of the war (Grumberg saw his father rounded up before his eyes)... tenderness dominates. The invented, twisted, twisted words give a funny charm to Grumberg's language.

The direction by Noémie Pierre, who also designed the scenography, offers the beautiful role to two great actors. In ankle boots, hair down, Clotilde Mollet composes a very endearing “Chipounet darling”. Former member of the Comédie-Française, Hervé Pierre succeeds in making us forget his gender under a black apron dress (costumes by Siegrid Petit-Imbert), in the skin of a very maternal mother. Annoyed and tired sometimes. What mom isn't?

The music of Colombine Jacquemont, in a generic cartoon style, emerges like a recreation. Seduced by the adaptation of his story for young and old, Jean-Claude Grumberg, who has just published In the Corridor, with the same publisher - a tribute to Ionesco and Beckett -, writes: "It's a theater for adults children who love their mother. It's a play about courage, resistance to adversity. And it screams, it cries, it sings, between dream and reality, between humor and seriousness, for the best of humanity, between tenderness and brutality.

“Mom, why are bad people bad?”, at La Scala (Paris 10th), until June 19. And at Éditions Actes Sud-Papiers.