Death doesn't pay the bill

6 reading minutes

written by Anaïs Sierro · 27 April 2021 · 0 comment

Tuesday's books - Anaïs Sierro

Although their terraces have reopened, the bars are still closed. What better way to find out what's going on than with Sing Sing Bar, a lively, intense play written and directed by Mali Van Valenberg? This Valais-born actress, author and director is no stranger to the stage. And while theaters were at a standstill last January, it was at Editions BSN Press that she wanted to make news by publishing Sing Sing Bar. Premiering in 2019 at Sion's Petit Théâtre, the play lives up to its name. For the playwright transforms the few square meters of a theater into a real karaoke bar, with real people and real problems. The kind that go around over a drink or a piece of sausage. So, while we're waiting to meet them on stage, let's get to know Mister Nobody, Vera, Solange and a fourth character, the deceptively absent sister.

Like any play, the stage is set. A bar, two women: Vera, the daughter, and Solange, the mother; a man called Mister Nobody, in front of his glass; a karaoke corner, a little old-fashioned and abandoned. Upstairs, the sister. Then the play begins with this almost unique dialogue between mother and daughter. We learn that the mother throws fertilizer at the neighbor and would like to smash the dwarf accordion over her head. But the dwarf was a gift from her daughters. And that it's her fault that her second daughter doesn't eat anymore. And the people who want to be noticed at his funeral, it's disgusting... But there's karaoke to be noticed with dignity. But no one's interested in that anymore, now that the Bugs Bunny Pub offers mini-canapés with tapenade and eggplant caviar... It doesn't take long to realize how absurd it is, but above all that the relationship isn't really healthy, or based on listening and respect.

First, the mother who doesn't want her daughter to call her «Mom», then an absent father and an unhealthy relationship where excess is the watchword. Solange pouring out her malaise on Vera, the latter's more or less controlled indifference, and a sister upstairs spoken of as a piece of food... normal, the mother would judge, when you're a vegetable... But this excess of strong personalities contrasts with the absence of customers, the calm of the place; its obsolescence.

Well, except for one customer who didn't seem to pay his bill when he left. Mister Nobody. A customer who could be anyone, but in reality is no one. A client who is there to lead us into an understanding of the lives of his three wives, and who single-handedly represents what affects this family: a father, a lover, comfort, support, absence, death.

Rhythmic calm

Paradoxically, this seemingly quiet bar is punctuated by its characters and their lives. Mali Van Valenberg plunges us into a text that breaks the rhythm, taking us along on subtle moral lessons. Mother and daughter play ping-pong in a discussion of the deaf, with short, dynamic lines, full of reproaches and amiable animosity, while Mister Nobody breaks the rhythm by addressing the audience in long, nonchalant and powerful monologues.

This process is not uncommon in the theater. An allegorical character who breaks the fourth wall and tells the story of the characters' destinies while having an impact on them. Here, however, the author brings a contemporary edge to the process. It's not only allegorical, it's also contemporary. is really. He embodies many characters and lives, is and isn't at the same time. He seems to be part of the play and yet is absent. He disrupts the scene, but at the same time keeps it on track. In the end, we're left with a heavy price to pay: the price of our lives, our mistakes, our regrets, the price we never really want to settle.

«Solange. And if not, did you see un good film recently?
Vera. Do you really feel the need to open a film interlude, or is it just to keep the conversation going?
Solange. No, you're right, I don't give a damn.»

Humor or irony?

Mali Van Valenberg's play is like an old La Fontaine fable: a banal story set to music. 60’s-80’s and a piquant moral at the end. Using humor in dialogue and form, the author gives us a false impression of platitude, of déjà-vu, but it's an irony that emerges: that of an era. Not of today, not of yesterday, but of tomorrow. The one that hides our days under a thick layer of banality and promises a future of indifference to ourselves and others.

An empty bar becomes synonymous with an empty being. Where two little voices bicker without listening to each other, and gravity catches up with them without ever touching them. The alarm bells go off, so you want to get out your wallet and pay your debt, only to be distracted by the next-door neighbor, the boss or a noise upstairs. Life goes on, and we recommend one more drink on the bill of an existence.

No more singing at the Sing Sing Bar. Is there a melody missing in the rhythms of their lives? our lives?

Write to the author: anais.sierro@leregardlibre.com