The mysteries of the Château d’If

Avignon, special envoy.

It’s Napoleon’s fault. On February 24, 1815, the emperor left the island of Elba and then marched on Paris. Making feverish the authorities in place throughout the country. That same day, Edmond Dantès, second in command of the Pharaoh, docked the merchant ship in the Old Port of Marseille, returning from an expedition. The young man took command of the boat after the sudden death of the old captain, and bravely brought it back. But his position, despite his skills, is envied by other members of the crew believing that it should have been theirs. The next day, in the Catalans district, the 19-year-old sailor is to marry Mercédès. But, in this troubled period, when Louis XVIII was preparing to take refuge in Ghent (Belgium), Dantès was suspected of conspiring in favor of Bonaparte, and there he was locked up in a dungeon in the Château d’If, a small maritime fortress in the harbor of the Phocaean city.

Even today, the dungeon can be visited, whereas Edmond Dantès never existed. His character is however derived from a true story, that of Pierre Picaud, shoemaker in Nîmes. With no less than 1,600 pages in a current edition, Alexandre Dumas published this novel-river in 1884, and Nicolas Bonneau, with Fanny Chériaux and Héloïse Desrivières, wrote an adaptation, necessarily picked up. What in truth gives to the adventure of the nerve and the breath.

« a spirit of revenge on the birth of capitalism »

On the set, in the very beautiful lights of Stéphanie Petton, the scenography of Gaëlle Bouilly draws with stilts (we do not pronounce the word ropes on a ship or in a theater) a whole universe of prison and wide open spaces. Nicolas Bonneau, storyteller and actor, as he defines himself, accompanied by singers and musicians Fanny Chériaux and Mathias Castagné, gives life to Dantès as to Abbé Faria, another essential protagonist at the beginning of the adventure. As well as a small crowd of more or less popular characters. » There is in the count of Monte Cristo a philosophical relevance and a spirit of revenge on the birth of capitalism that resonates with our current world”, also indicates Nicolas Bonneau.

In rather famous circumstances, Edmond Dantès, who came close to madness, managed to escape. Becoming extremely wealthy and generous to his former friends, he devoted his time to chastising those who had stolen his youth, having him condemned without trial, on the strength of a false document. In this Monte Cristo, justice is rendered to him with talent.