Free Association

Yves Jacques has shared the stage with everyone from Rossellini to Malkovich, but he's no diva.

by A.D. Amorosi

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Published: Jun 10, 2009

interview

City Paper: You've worked with Isabella Rossellini, John Malkovich, Rupert Everett and Mr. Lepage — who is the biggest diva?

Yves Jacques: (Laughs) I would say Rupert Everett.

CP: You've been part and parcel of Lepage's work since 2001's theatrical version of The Far Side of the Moon and you've been part of The Andersen Project since 2006 .What — technically, spiritually, aesthetically — is the through-line that connects these works?

YJ: The human soul, the human solitude, and the inner strength one should have to survive in the modern world. Aesthetically it is Robert Lepage's own way of putting technical devices and acting talents all together in a perfect communion.

CP: What does it feel like crawling inside of his skin — rather the skin of the character Lepage created? Is it just another job for a talented actor, or is this different?

YJ: No, it is like [as] if Robert let me go inside his world and more specifically into his childhood room. Which is quite a privilege.

CP: How and did you first get to know Lepage, and what connects you to each other — other than these characters?

YJ: We met when we were in our 20s. We were playing in a show about Edith Piaf — Robert would play the emcee and I would do lots of characters such as Yves Montand and a junkie or two. But Quebec being a very small city, we got to know each other just dropping in to each other while walking in the streets. And we had the same taste from the beginning with rock music, theater and life.

CP: What makes you tackle the projects you do on your own — the thing that motivates you beyond all else?

YJ: I always concentrate on the character and what he is doing in the play or script. It's getting more and more important for me that there has to be some kind of an evolution. It sparkles my soul and my mind that I can be involved in something that would bring me to be challenged by the show.

CP: How do you find such a human tale within the scale of the production and never get lost within it?

YJ: Working with Robert is a matter of touching the infinitely big and the infinitely small. It is all part of the same conscience of the universe.

CP: You morph through so many characters in The Andersen Project — the seemingly insecure librettist, the plotting administrator of the Paris Opera, the doting father worrying about the daughter (whom you also play). What's the morphing process like?

YJ: I'm always concentrating on what is happening here and now. When I play one, I don't play the other (laughs).

CP: Is there one character that's most rewarding?

YJ: It's like making your grocery list. There you are in front of the vegetables rack concentrating on what you need but always aware that you're going to cook a beautiful fish to fit with it; like driving a car looking forward but still with an eye on the mirror to see what's going on behind.

CP: What should I know about you by the end of The Andersen Project that we'd least expect? What should I come away with when I leave the theater?

YJ: To have the impression that this big work looks very easy, while it is not, and that it is a matter of having fun at the end. And that theater can be something else than boring — rather that it's open-minded. The best way to introduce teenagers or someone who's been bored by old-fashioned theater would be to bring them to see a Lepage.

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)

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