Theater: our review of Parallèles, a well-crafted romantic comedy

From past misfortunes come future hopes, they say. Romain is not at the wedding. His ex left him a year ago. Phew. It was one morning and the clock was stuck at 10:27, the time she slammed the door of the foyer. With him, she felt "worse than dead", because he was "worse than empty" . "You are a negative space, she had told him , a kind of black hole ." The icing on the cake is that the cat, not wanting to be alone with him, preferred to throw itself from the ^6th floor. Romain feels like "a waste of organic matter less useful to humanity than a school of jellyfish" . A white clown whose every step pushes him further into ridicule. In short, he feels "schpouik" .

Romain is played by this truly remarkable actor, Benjamin Wangermée, with a pinched voice and a rubber body. Throughout the show, we laugh at his clumsiness, his pathological shyness. He has an exhausting neurosis. But one evening, invited to a housewarming party, he declares, on the landing, to a woman in a sexy black dress who is also going: "I'm going to spoil their party." The woman's name is Marion and she is not the reserved type. She answers him bluntly: "You don't have the stuff to spoil a party. The worst you could do is be mistaken for a yucca."

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A landing, a strange place for a strange encounter: that of a liberated, dynamic woman, a lover of Kleenex sex and a gray, uptight accountant, reciting insipid Alexandrines. Imagine Barbarella meeting Gaston Lagaffe. This encounter between a mediocrely engaging thirty-something and a desirable forty-something will create sparks and bubbles. There is a comic strip side to this play written and directed at a gallop by Alexandre Oppecini. Even if the situations are deliberately and sometimes grossly exaggerated, everything rings true. Marion is played by Marie Pierre Nouveau and she is impeccable in her role as a HPE (high erotic potential) woman.

Little by little, these two will find each other. Marion, the feline, is actually not so sure of herself. As for Romain, he is not as "dumb" as he seems. They will not go to a housewarming party but will spend the night together like in a well-crafted romantic comedy. There are some beautiful exercises in style; like this sequence during which they get ready for their evening. They talk concurrently, and it is quite impressive.

A certain madness emerges from this improbable duo. In a setting made of two benches and a curtain as a backdrop, Marion and Romain (anagrams) move in a sort of chiaroscuro, a reflection of their personalities. These two "ultramodern solitudes" were not really made to meet, but, like opposing magnets, "matched" for the duration of an evening. So, dare these Parallels which, you will see, will end up touching you.

Les Parallèles, until March 27 at La Scala, Paris (10th) .