Soft words and hard words. In It’s almost over, a one-on-one co-written with Timothé Fiorini and directed by Valentine Catzéflis, Gabriel Donzelli takes us on his personal odyssey with great grace and humor.
His show is played for a last date this Thursday, August 24 at the Comédie des 3 Bornes, a minimalist setting for this beginner and moving artist. It will join the Petit Palais des Glaces in the fall and thus give another dimension to its history. That of a young boy, victim at the age of one year of a serious brain cancer. “The writing started a year ago. Originally, it was a film that I wanted to direct. But, I didn’t have enough self-confidence. And then I decided to move on because I was tired of starting projects and not doing them. Things came to fruition in the form of sketches and then a show,” says 21-year-old Gabriel Donzelli, who had just graduated from film school.
He plays it, he laughs about it, but sometimes we are on the verge of tears, to see him replay the fight against the disease that left him hemiplegic. An eye that never closes. One testicle smaller than the other. Medical necessities that accelerate and then slow down the onset of puberty… Nothing that does not facilitate the entry into love life, this great adventure. Gabriel Donzelli does not spare himself. “When you write about yourself, you censor yourself,” he explains. You have to put nuances and not tell everything. Obviously, I need to keep mystery and a secret garden. But the idea of ??the show is to touch on the universal via my personal life. »
He spares no one. Neither the doctors and their prosaic recommendations which enjoin a patient to masturbate while he still entrusts the least of his torments to his parents. Nor the scriptwriters of his life, to whom he enjoys giving shape and whose sadistic taste he invents for the most improbable cliffhangers. Nor the college buddies he never had. Nor even his parents, authors of the very beautiful film War is declared, released in 2011. “The desire for the absurd came quite quickly. Quite naturally, we started creating these characters with my co-author Timothé Fiorini. And that immediately seemed obvious to us. I need this. Embodying these different characters is a way of playing the child that I have remained,” says Gabriel Donzelli.
Between shamelessness and great modesty, he re-knits the story of his life. And it is very successful. “When I say I know who I am at the end of the show, it’s true. This show allowed me to free myself. And I have noticed that someone who accepts his faults manages to radiate impressive strength. Not accepting yourself is a hindrance in life, in my eyes. »
It’s almost over, written by Gabriel Donzelli and Timothé Fiorini and directed by Valentine Catzéflis, at La Comédie des 3 Bornes at 7:30 p.m. this Thursday.
