Second haughty and essential role in French cinema and theater, the actor Philippe Laudenbach died on April 22, in Toulouse, at the age of 88. Born on January 31, 1936 in Bourg-la-Reine (today in Hauts-de-Seine), he was the nephew of Pierre Fresnay. Same fine features, same angular face, same gentle smile and same precision of play. This seducer had something childish about him that knew how to reassure. But, as long as his voice accelerates the tempo and his expression freezes, the charm becomes a threat and the actor could worry.
Although he did not experience the notoriety of his uncle, he was one of those essential actors who form the too often anonymous battalion of the stage and the big screen. Without these supports of representation that the brilliance of the stars conceals, the distributions would falter on themselves. Philippe Laudenbach did not seek to take all the spotlight on himself. This is the paradoxical reason why we noticed him all the more.
Trained at the National School of Dramatic Art, where he was a student of Fernand Ledoux, the young performer took his first steps on the stage at a time when Parisian theaters did not really know the lines of demarcation which today dissociate today private and subsidized sectors. In the capital’s small venues, from La Michodière to Lucernaire, from l’Atelier to Gaîté-Montparnasse, demanding texts supported by careful staging were performed in the 1960s and 1970s. The commercial scope of a show does not necessarily outweigh its dramaturgical interest. The public goes from left bank to right bank in search of new pieces.
“Far from the rhinestones and glitter”
Philippe Laudenbach works with André Barsacq, Yves Gasc, Michel Fagadau, Pierre Franck and Georges Vitaly. These creators, whose names no longer speak to younger generations, have contributed to making the works of cutting-edge playwrights known. Among these, Luigi Pirandello, of whom Laudenbach will perform several pieces: I dreamin 1970; As you want mein 1990 ; Be locatedin 1999. In 1998, he was nominated for Molières in the category of best actor in a supporting role for The Crazy Hat (Pirandello always). The direction is by Laurent Terzieff, an accomplice with whom he explores the worlds of Slawomir Mrozek (Hunchback’s Peak1979), Brecht (I, Bertolt Brecht2001) or Ronald Harwood (The Dresser2009).
Terzieff is an ascetic who forcefully asserts: “Theatre is not this or that, but this and that. » Laudenbach, who made this maxim his own until working, in the early 1990s, in the holy of holies of contemporary writing – the Théâtre de la Colline in Paris – has, for his part, a form of mysticism. Interviewed in 2009 on a Swiss television channel, he explained: “In any search for artistic creation, there is a form of spirituality because we elevate ourselves to try to elevate others, to help them leave the heaviness of everyday life… Play is a way of to leave oneself for a time, to embody another. This is the start of a spiritual life for the actor. »
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