Class of 2010: Emmanuel Schwartz, the mastermind

There’s nothing remotely dull about an encounter with Emmanuel Schwartz. If you haven’t been swept up by the tsunami of accolades for the artist, who’s been dubbed “the toast of Avignon”, you’re missing out. And although NIGHTLIFE isn’t generally inclined to jump on buzz bandwagons and hail those everyone is raving about, we can’t help but tip our hat off to an enterprising young talent with a fertile mind and a fascinating worldview.

Why local stage maestro Wajdi Mouawad ever-so boldly asked a fresh-faced CEGEP graduate to set up a theatre company with him doesn’t seem half as loony after spending a few moments with the eloquent Schwartz. In fact, the wide-ranging – and extensive – resume this 27 year-old has built up in recent years is nothing short of remarkable. I’d use the word ambitious, if I didn’t find it so belittling.

For one, there have been small screen roles in Kif-Kif and Rumeurs, bit parts in auteur–driven pictures like Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There (sharing screen time with Cate Blanchett), and a smattering of theatre gigs, in which he’s deftly juggled the roles of playwright, actor, translator, director and so on. He’s even dabbled in dance, kicking off his career traveling the globe as one of Dave St-Pierre’s hoofers in the now legendary La Pornographie des âmes.

And then came the much-lauded presentation of Mouawad’s 11-hour trilogy Le sang des promesses (Mouawad’s plays Littoral, Incendies and Forêts performed in succession) before an audience of 2000 eager thrill-seekers in the courtyard to the Papal Palace, at last year’s Avignon Festival. Schwartz, playing lead character Wilfrid in Littoral and the role of Samuel Cohen in Forêts, cemented his status as an “étoile montante de l’Hexagone”, as they say, with both Libération and Le Monde extolling his virtues.

As we walk along Van Horne Avenue on a sunny Friday back in April, Schwartz shares how happy he is to be back on home turf, after an extended European adventure that involved, in typical Schwartz fashion, a heaping handful of projects. And while he has occasionally shown signs of exhaustion (he can check fainting and vomiting on stage off his thespian to-do list), you’d be hard-pressed to find someone more wholly committed to reinventing the craft. And one who boasts such a downright electrifying stage presence. Here, the Montreal native – son of an Anglo-Jewish jazz guitarist and a French physical therapist – shares a semester’s worth of food for thought, discussing crossover artists, cultural identity and creative solitude.

 

You feel a particular affinity with the Wilfrid character in Littoral. Wilfrid yearns to tap into his Arabic roots and reconnect with his heritage. Did you wrestle with similar feelings in regards to your Jewish background?
The issue moved me because I feel stateless even though I am not. I feel a human fraternity, I wasn’t born in violence, I grew up in a place where I was encouraged to go seek out other cultures and so in that sense, I feel like I’m part of a worldwide population, but I’m not defined by the specific place where I was born.

Montreal is often described as a crossroads between Europe and North America. Having travelled quite extensively of late, would you say this also applies to our theatre milieu?
With European capitals, it’s a given that you’ll find a theatre per X amount of people. It’s an established fact, there are theatres everywhere. Because of francophone culture here, there’s part of that spirit that remains. There’s a strong performing arts culture, but having said that, just like everywhere else in America, that’s in danger of disappearing. But there’s also resistance, thanks to the French’s culture of resistance. The culture of going out, hearing someone talk, going to meet up with the community in a given space, that exists here.

We’ve been asking the entire Class of 2010 about the supposed rift in the city’s French and English arts scenes. Fact or fiction?
I’d say that within non-commercial art forms, there exists a very real métissage. Unfortunately though, perhaps, for everything that’s slightly more institutional, there’s very little crossover. Having said that, there are areas in which Anglos and Francos collaborate, and I’ve seen it particularly in the dance world. Maybe that’s because it’s a non-verbal language. I’ve also seen it care of certain theatre partnerships. And with music, of course. Now, for everything that involves verbal cues, it can be slightly more complicated, but I feel as though there’s a tangible yearning to mix, blend, bleed it all together.

You yourself are part of Montreal’s emerging community of crossover artists, jumping at the chance to nourish your creative thirst in many disciplines. Who else would you say readily blurs those lines?
People like Dave St-Pierre, Christian Lapointe, Antonija Livingstone, Clara Furey, Francis Ducharme, Justin Laramée, Enrica Boucher, Simon Boulerice, Sarah Berthiaume… they’re total chameleons. They did studies in acting, but wanted to write. Studies in playwriting but want to direct. This reassures me, because there’s a strong desire within this community not to miss out on anything; to do everything. It’s reassuring to me that isn’t obsolete.

Was this versatile actor model more widespread with previous generations, in your opinion?
Well, the ideal of the actor who creates has grown significantly since La La La Human Steps, I believe. People like Marc Béland and Gaétan Nadeau, they proved to us that it was possible to dabble in everything at once, allowing you to breathe that way. The different forms feed off each other like that, through doing theatre, dance, music…

Who is the local artist whose career path you consider most inspiring?
Dave St-Pierre. I had the pleasure of working with him during his first shows. I find the singularity of his approach admirable. His battle to remain marginal is in and of itself a defiant act. Artists face the risk of abandoning their initial ideals as shows lead to bigger shows and recognition comes knocking. Thankully and commendably, he has remained razor-sharp. He whose knife was not dulled by his years of work.

You mounted your first professional show – a 4-hour trilogy in collaboration two other directors – and presented it to rave reviews at La Chapelle last September. Did that allow you to breathe a sigh of relief?
Absolutely. To have brought to fruition a crazy vision, a 4-hour theatre show, when you thought you neither had the time not the money, it’s really reassuring. These are projects that are in a way unjustifiable, that are the end result of some kind of intuition, and to know that it’s still possible to tap into your inner child and dream, to succeed in giving life to that on stage and that people will come, that’s really reassuring.

Do you think the institutional support currently allotted to performing artists in Canada is reasonable?
Well, there is the possibility to open coffers and mount incredible projects. I’ve had the opportunity to experience it with the company [Abé Carré Cé Carré, with Mouawad]. It’s a really big company when we do Wajdi’s shows, and a small one when we do mine, as I’m just beginning. I’ve got a foot in both worlds so I can attest to the fact that for larger-scale projects, there is funding.

But so many small companies work tirelessly and with little resources to bring their vision to life. I think you have to be ready to work on your own projects, because there sure isn’t enough institutional work for the pool of talent coming out of art schools. The positive flipside being that this creates an entire community of marginal makers who have no other choice than to really define themselves in opposition. Without money, without support from any funding bodies. 

If you had to single out one thing that Wajdi has taught you over the years…
You are alone. We’re friends, but you’re alone. That’s a sentence Wajdi has repeated to me countless times. We all stand together, but we’re also solitary. The collective spirit that comes with producing theatre is indeed important, and the fact that we all carry a show together, and it’s reassuring to tell oneself that it’s a group effort, but when you’re the creator, ultimately you find yourself alone with your ideas.

And back when you had just graduated from CEGEP, did you see things any differently?
I would tell myself: I will find accomplices to lean on, and they’ll lean on me, and together we’ll storm ahead. It’s a beautiful ideal and there’s some truth to it, but when you remove all the common denominators, and you peel away the layers back to when it all began, what is it that brings everyone together around an idea? It’s that spark, the birthing of a kind of idea sculpture, a mosaic of all kinds of perspectives that we attempt to blend together. Ultimately, we are alone with that stream of images, and the battle with the work is a solitary one.

 

Le Sang des Promesses (Littoral + Incendies + Forêts)
June 6 at noon | Théâtre Maisonneuve
Festival TransAmériques

Chroniques
June 4 and 5 at 7 p.m. | June 6 at 1:30 p.m. | La Chapelle
OFFTA

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To read our Class of 2010 feature in its entirety, click here.