The two stories could follow each other, as the scenarios of these two comedies respond to each other. The first, The Star Merchants (1), featuring Parisians who try to lead a normal life despite the Occupation, takes place at the end of June, shortly before the Vél’d’Hiv roundup. The second, Back to school 42. Welcome children (2), takes place a few months later, at the beginning of October, while the shadow of deportations hangs over the capital.
The Star Merchantsfirst, takes us to the storeroom of Raymond’s business, a fabric seller in full inventory. With his wife, his daughter and his two employees, they spend the evening counting the meters of fabric. Each has their own task, they discuss everything and nothing until Joseph, one of the employees, reveals that his mother is Jewish. Faced with the troubled reactions, he specifies: “ I did my communion, my confirmation, I am not Jewish. » Too late, doubt sets in on the set.
The tension is further heightened with the arrival of Marcel, a neighbor who has just set up his own militia, “ a parallel and improved police force »in his words. He tracks down a Jew on the run in the neighborhood. Seeing that his victim has not found refuge at Raymond’s, Marcel ends up leaving the place, but will not stop going back and forth all evening.
A text balanced between funny scenes and tense exchanges
In a lively staging, Anthony Michineau’s play alternates moments of lightness, sometimes almost a joke, and heavy moments, where the threat of denunciation weighs. Raymond, to whom Guillaume Bouchède gives a lot of depth, tries to maintain control, first over his business, then over the situation which inevitably gets out of hand. The reality of the conflict catches up with him when he must choose between denouncing Joseph or hiding his identity.
This same reality also catches up with four teachers from a school in 11e district, in Back to school 42. On September 30, after the summer break, they prepare to welcome their students and adapt as best they can to the new educational directives. Gisèle (Anne Richard), the director, tries to make her establishment a neutral place, far from conflict. Lucienne (Isabelle Andréani) adapts to the times and copes very well with the black market to bring sweets and coffee to her colleagues. Monique (Émilie Chevrillon), a rebellious communist at heart, is the only one to express her disgust at the war. As for Suzy (Fanny Lucet), from a bourgeois background, she blindly trusts Marshal Pétain to sort everything out.
Time to choose
Back to school arrives, and nothing goes as planned. Of the 123 girls expected at school, 107 are missing. The realization is brutal. The teachers try to understand what is happening and very quickly, the link with the Vél’d’Hiv becomes obvious. The play then experiences a turnaround. The opening fresco, full of realism, turns into burlesque, and the pace accelerates. If this change of tone surprises, even destabilizes the viewer, the humor counterbalances an increasingly dark picture.
The two comedies, which work on collective memory, thus paint portraits of ordinary French people, neither resistance fighters nor collaborators, who wait in a form of passivity for the end of the war. But believing that conflict only affects others is an illusion, and everyone ultimately faces choices. In The Star MerchantsRaymond summarizes the situation as follows: “ In war, there is no good or bad person. There are only good or bad decisions. »