“The Deans”: a short treatise on education for and by Dummies – L’Humanité

In a very Sorbonne setting, in this case the Richelieu amphitheater of the prestigious university, with its woodwork, its painted canvases, its green English lamps, its solid wood desks and its vertically sliding blackboard, Christophe Honoré imagined a show in the form of a conference where it is a question of education.

Led by two bewigged and powdered “elders”, self-proclaimed experts in the subject, sure of their knowledge, they put forward vague theories as retrograde as they are grotesque that they must have taken from “Education for (and by) dummies”.

From the top of their pedestal, in a learned and sufficient tone, they refer to Rousseau, to Descartes, whom they knew well, they assert; but also to Plutarch, to Laurence Pernoud, to Hesiod, to Sheila (the quilt singer) or to Harry Potter. Faced with such a display of knowledge as adulterated as the fake news that circulates social networks, as disparate as it is ubiquitous, mad laughter spreads through the theater aisles at the nonsense thrown around by these shoddy Bouvards and Pécuchets.

A remedy against obscurantism

To explain the big bang, they project the film poster la Boom. To learn how to shine in society, you are entitled to a tango class. And as they combine practice with theory, our two scientists engage in experimentation. Didn’t they take in an orphan to apply their theories? A young boy they are raising… in a closet.

At a time when education is at the heart of endless debates, where children are required to succeed, where parents are anxious, where teachers must apply the program and nothing but the program, the Deans blithely mocks all the vague educational theories, all the approximations stated with the greatest seriousness by so-called experts. The piece is a call to the critical and rebellious mind. Humor here is not a screen but rather a firebreak against all obscurantisms. A well-shaped head is better than a very full head, said Montaigne…

Julien Honoré and Jean-Charles Clichet in the shoes of these two deans are priceless. Their perfectly timed performance provokes sparks and cascades of laughter. Faced with this duo of actors, Sylvain Debry slips into his different characters with grace. The farcical mechanism works wonderfully even if the last quarter of an hour is too much and breaks the electric rhythm of the piece.

The play was created at the Théâtre de la Ville-Sarah-Bernhardt as part of the Childhood & Youth course. Tour: November 28 to 1^is December in Reims; from December 6 to 8 in Le Havre; from December 21 to 23 in Nice; January 11 and 12, 2024 in Évry; from January 17 to 21 in Vidy-Lausanne, and April 15 and 16 in Douai.