Jonathan Capdevielle

In a patchwork of baroque repertory, disco hits and traditional singing, Jonathan Capdevielle entangles us in the web of his deepest memories - taking us back to the trials and tribulations of our own adolescence in the process.
In this his directorial debut, Gisèle Vienne’s prized performer, dancer, singer, ventriloquist, virtuoso actor, and unparalleled manipulator of objects, the aptly named “human jukebox” strikes hard. At times moving, funny, raw, extrovert and extravagant, Adishatz / Adieu sees him combining songs and imitations, opening up a pathway into epidemic introspection in the process. Is this a piece of autoportrait, confession, documentary theatre or autofiction? Alternating between real life and dream, his life trajectory is unveiled via the prism of songs. They become the dreamed up pages of a diary, tarnished with anxiety, and from which the shrill cry of a search for identity rings out. His a cappella singing bears his all too vulnerable inner self. At the same time, the voice which breaks through the silence is a multiple one, and which brings out every nuance of the words of the songs. In a similar way, the technique of imitation is used not simply for fun but as a distancing effect in order to blur the boundaries between the humorous and the serious. Sat at a dressing table, during a telephone conversation with his fathers, snatches of which reveal the absence of a mother, the soloist dresses transforms himself into a burlesque Madonna of the French provinces. We are given a radiant tableau of a complex adolescent struggling to find his own way.