‘The Room’, James Thierry’s untamed mental space at Châtelet

With his latest creation designed while in confinement, Charlie Chaplin’s grandson allowed himself to break all boundaries of meaning to explode his emotions with words and music. In a masterful scenography, the talented artist takes us through a whirlwind of images and sounds as things come to life and bodies fall apart. A stunning and dizzying descent into the childhood of the soul.

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James Thierry, the gifted grandson of Charlie Chaplin who was brought up in the world of acrobats and circuses from the age of seven, and who for twenty-five years has followed an original and successful personal path –The Cockchafer Symphony (2003), The Vigil of the Abyss (2004), Raoul (2009)– now attacks to blow up his mental space, his creative room whose walls, like Grégoire’s room the shift From Kafka, it will gradually fly away or, conversely, collapse. With scores of distinguished musicians, singers, and circus performers, he embodies a double, a little man with silver hair, half conductor, half magician, who soars briskly and nervously according to his impulses like Don Quixote flailing on the wings of mills. . But here, there are no mills, Sancho Panza or Roscinante. “I wanted to put on a show that was a supposed mess,” declares the artist, who has gathered on stage all the accessories so dear to him: a door with an old medallion, a safe, picture frames, sewing mannequins and a snare drum. … many things that have come to life thanks to the engineering of display technologists.

I assumed chaos

© Richard Hughton-

It is an oversized children’s room that opens up to us in full light on a stage, cut by the magnetic shadows of figures and objects tearing it apart. In this room, no one stays put. The Chaplinesque hero spins instantly, unraveling like a disjointed doll before flinging himself on a parachute or hurtling like a rocket through a painting frame. An aerial dancer is shown gliding across the floor before contorting herself like a cat, another more powerful one launches into a series of breakdancing at an impressive level, then everything is whisked away, the music thumping on its mighty strings of high-pitched violin, like the swell of a Shakespearean unquenchable storm. Any ship can resist it. Are we in theatre? Or on the set of Fellini’s where the comic competes with the ghost? And what does Alessio, the foreman or stage manager, look like a stage jailer, with a whole lot of dangling volume keys? Doors and walls move with the lightness of painted oil paintings, while a triple keyboard piano seems to be playing on its own.

An amazing symphony

© Richard Hughton-

The musicians also dance and sing, similar to the tracks by James Thierry who also begins to sing like A.J croon The spleen seized her. Because far from the misguided choreography, with the elegant chaos the texts stand out, the lyrics stand out with a lovely energy. Folk, electro or hard rock music, characters and objects take an emotional elevator that takes us around the track at TGV speed. As if everything, despite the director’s consternation, had slipped away from him in a wave of rebellion and madness. The artists’ skill, creativity and energy impress us. And the author of this creation, with proven theatrical works, multiplies the apostrophes for the audience, questioning the meaning of the show and its invisible coherence. Thierry seems to be playing with us while mocking himself, half angel, half monster, boyish to the end of his malice. This talented careerist remains a poet who, along with his comrades, fascinates us with his stunning images and songs of desperate tenderness.

Helen Kutner