Our review of I’ve come from afar : those who are absent are always in the decor

Saturday is perhaps the cruelest of days. It sometimes generates unpleasant surprises, cuts short a weekend and why not a life. It was a winter Saturday that Camille left the family home, that is to say Marc (her partner), Paul (her son) and Lucie (her daughter). Camille has left and, sitting on a table - which would be a pontoon at the seaside - she recounts her escape.

We see her from behind, behind a curtain. We recognize the voice of Françoise Gillard, all in subtlety. This actress has the talent to impose herself naturally. It is obvious. Soon, we will discern his face since it is reflected in two large mirrors arranged diagonally, the scene thus forming a strange triangle like in a palace of mirrors which makes us lose our orientation. The ground is covered with sand; From time to time we will hear the ebb and flow of the waves.

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From the pontoon, Camille observes her house which she has deserted because she returned as a visitor. She imagines what Marc (Pierre Louis-Calixte), Paul (Adrien Simion) and Lucie (Léa Lopez) have become. She imagines their conversations, the questions they ask about her absence. They find no sufficient reason for his departure. Everything is without a why. Marc seems lost; Lucie is not unhappy with the departure of her mother, whom she says is jealous and selfish: Lucie was more brilliant than her at the piano; as for Paul, he whines every morning over his hot chocolate which no longer tastes the same as before, when his mother prepared it. He thinks she'll come home tomorrow.

I have come from afar is a confusing play by Claudine Galea. It looks like a wicked pack of tarot cards that are turned over at random, and here is the figure of death which appears, a dire destiny. This intimate story in several voices is almost always accompanied in the background by a haunting double bass, solos composed by Théo Girard.

The direction by Sandrine Nicolas is of harsh beauty. She advances with soft steps. There would be some fugue art here. All in counterpoint. Little by little, the viewer senses that Camille's departure would, in reality, hide the cleverly combined disappearance of Marc, Paul and Lucie. Clues are scattered here and there. So when Camille says: “On the news, they announced the first real day of winter, with the thermometer falling and snow falling on the heights. » Or: “All three of them disappeared. They skied very well. A Sunday morning. » Victims of an avalanche?

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I have come from afar would be a journey to the dead made of back and forth. This play could have been called The Apparitions, a famous poem by William Butler Yeats. Camille left her home because she was nothing but memories. The time before is linked to the present time and the future time. We will remember the obvious presence of Françoise Gillard and we will remember Pierre Louis-Calixte, Adrien Simion and Léa Lopez, ghosts floating in a house that will haunt us for a long, long time.

I've come a long way, at the Studio Comédie-Française (Paris 1st), until October 29.