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by Francis Veber, directed by Guy Mignault

Théâtre français de Toronto,

Berkeley Street Theatre Upstairs, Toronto

April 24-May 9, 2009

Francis Veber is a French playwright, screenwriter and director who has an odd knack for writing great screenplays that Hollywood snaps up for ruinous remakes (e.g. Pure Luck or Father’s Day).  Veber’s Le Dîner des cons (1993) began as a comedy that after its long run on stage Veber made into a film in 1998 so popular a sixth of the French population is said to have seen it.  It’s English title is The Dinner Game but news is that Hollywood will remake it as Dinner for Schmucks for release in 2011.  Forget the film.  Don’t wait for the remake.  Théâtre français de Toronto is presenting the original play, with several surtitled performances.  With a first-rate cast, handsome design and precise direction, you couldn’t imagine a better production.

Director Guy Mignault wonders if Veber is the Molière of our day.  Both are masters of satiric farce, but Molière’s comedies often have the depth of tragedy one doesn’t find in Veber.  Instead, Veber tricks us into laughing and feeling guilty about at it the same time.  When the play begins well-to-do publisher Pierre Brochant (Paul Essiembre) is about to head off to the “dinner of idiots” of the title.  Each week members of his circle invite an “idiot” to dinner whom they encourage to talk as much as possible about himself to the circle’s disguised amusement.  Brochant has invited François Pignon (Pierre Simpson), said to be a “first-class idiot” by a friend, and has asked him over to meet him before the dinner.  Unluckily, Brochant has wrenched in back, cannot attend the dinner and finds himself the victim of the well-meaning but constantly backfiring “help” that Pignon tries to give him.  During the action Brochant’s wife (Marianne Lambert) and mistress (Stéphanie Broschart) both desert him because of the strong mean streak that enjoys these “dîners des cons.”  As Veber encourages us to laugh at Pignon he puts us in the position of Brochant’s vicious circle.  For anyone willing to look, Veber asks where our laughter at Pignon’s innocent ineptitude comes from.

Simpson is absolutely wonderful as Pignon, making him not a clown, but a completely believable naive young man whose only faults are his narrow interests, an over-eagerness to help and an abundant capacity for making mistakes under pressure.  In contrast to Pignon’s total lack of cynicism is the meanness of Essiembre’s finely detailed Brochant, to whom we’re drawn because he is attractive and revels in his sense of superiority.  Why should we side at first with the cynic and not the innocent?  It’s all part of Veber’s strategy to expose the less wholesome aspects of social organization both on stage and in ourselves.                        

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2009-04-27.

Photo: Jean-Michel Le Gal, Pierre Simpson and Paul Essiembre. ©2009 Dominic Manca.