At the Théâtre de la Tempête, in the Cartoucherie de Vincennes, the Carlos Ghosn affair is transformed into a wild farce. The play runs until May 24th. Everyone's guilty except Thermos GronnFreely inspired by the scandal surrounding the former Renault-Nissan boss, the play revisits his escape from Japan through a deliberately absurd and surreal lens. Driven by Sacha Vilmar's energetic direction and a script by Romane Nicolas, the show fully embraces caricature to better subvert reality.
An escape turned surreal laughter machine
The play is based on a widely publicized news story: Carlos Ghosn's spectacular escape in 2019, when he secretly left Japan for Lebanon after being prosecuted for financial misconduct. In this theatrical version, the former executive becomes Thermos Gronn, a grotesque character embarking on a delirious flight to an imaginary tax haven.
The narrative quickly veers away from realism, plunging into a world inspired by Alfred Jarry, where police officers resemble Thomson and Thompson, trials unfold in improbable settings, and authority figures are ridiculed. The stage becomes a playground where each scene adds another layer of absurdity to an already unstable plot.
The cast, including Fanny Colnot, Étienne Guillot, Véronique Mangenot, and Sacha Vilmar, contributes to this frenetic pace. Their performances rely as much on the precision of the situations as on a constant energy that sustains the comic confusion.
An invented language and a moving scenography
One of the show's most striking elements lies in its use of language. The text is replete with neologisms and deliberate word distortions: some vowels are reversed, transforming everyday vocabulary into a strange and comical idiom. This linguistic invention contributes to the distancing effect and reinforces the impression of a parallel world.
The set design follows the same experimental logic. A revolving stage, sets reduced to symbolic objects, and deliberately constrained spaces create an immediate connection with the audience. The whole gives rise to a stage mechanism where the locations are constantly transforming, blurring the lines between prison, courtroom, and fantastical escape.
As the performance unfolds, the story of Thermos Gronn becomes a pretext for a broader reflection on power, escape, and the derision of dominant figures. But the play remains, above all, a deliberate exercise in style, where absurdity and satire take precedence over any attempt at realism.
Community
Comments
Comments are open, but protected against spam. Initial posts and comments containing links undergo manual review.
Be the first to comment on this article.