Architectures de la joie

After many years of making the Frenchspeaking world laugh with his cult albums (over 2 million copies sold) and his work on radio and television, François Pérusse now presents his very first original stage play, created in the pure tradition of Boulevard theatre. 

They are father, sons, cousins, brothers-in-law; they are 23, 40, and 65 years old and have known each other forever. A small Egyptian-Québec clan has gathered in a cottage in the woods, with enough food to feed an army (you can never be too careful), and the group is about to celebrate Ralph’s birthday and enjoy the simple pleasures of the Laurentian forest. With the boys.

In 1965, two men took the stage for a heated verbal sparring match in Cambridge, with the writer James Baldwin facing the conservative intellectual William F. Buckley Jr. The former dismantled the myth of the American dream, arguing that it was created at the expense of African-Americans. The latter defended the notion of the United States as a meritocracy, convinced that inequality comes down to individual effort rather than a history of oppression. Two visions of the world collided in a debate that has taken on mythic dimensions thanks to archival footage.