Les Prétendants

With students from the Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique de Paris. 3rd year Masque workshop.

So there are two of them. Two young men fresh from the Écoles, quite brilliant and ironic: Marc Später and Jean-Michel Blot. The former is the candidate, endorsed by the city and the state, to run the Centre Culturel. The other is his accomplice, the one who has come to be his second in command. A well-known reflex: it's always preferable for two people to enter an existing institution, at least in pairs, in order to better master these ossified old bodies... But this always poses a problem. The whole environment prefers to deal with an isolated man.

How far does the "friendship" between these two young men go?
Lagarce remains absolutely discreet on this subject. They are also friends, or have been, with... the daughter of the outgoing Director. Lagarce is a little less discreet about this: we can guess that, probably back in college, Christine had a big crush, maybe more, on Blot; that Später got involved. A bag of knots that's not always pleasant to remember... And the matter is complicated by the fact that Christine holds a position in the house, and there will have to be a mutual accommodation, whatever the corpses in the cupboards...