Wednesday, December 1, 2021 at 9 p.m. Do you see the recurring figure? Alan Turing would no doubt have found this repetition of figures reassuring and satisfying. That evening, the theatrical performance of Benoît Solès' play: La machine de Turing took place. A piece whose roots are historical and biographical since it is largely inspired by the life of Alan Turing. It was performed at the Théâtre du Palais Royal and directed by Tristan Petitgirard.
Even after months and months of performance, the room was full of people. He was awarded 4 Molières, and with merit. This piece captivates you, moves you and really transports you. The character of Alan Turing was played that night by Matyas Simon, and Gregory Benchenafi remarkably took on 3 roles single-handedly: the role of Sergeant Ross, Hugh and Arnold.
A stage full of stories and a play set up like a machine
These titles are pleonastic, but let's take each word as a syllepsis. The play has a precise historical setting, we are immersed in the middle of the World War and the Cold War.
The background of the scene is like a huge shelf in front of a screen canvas. It forms tight boxes on the left and two wide ones on the right. I write shelf, since the scene most of the time represents Turing's apartment. But this background also represents the machine, it will be the central element. We project in the background, so through the boxes, on the entire canvas, depending on the progression of the action, an English school with cherry blossoms, the march of the Germans, the cogs of the machine, the rain, figures that fall and trickle like raindrops, with a transcription of the place and the year to contextualize the action. The play takes place on at least 6 dates. Sometimes projections are made in small boxes, so there is a lot of information. Several images are duplicated: the German soldiers, the machine, the numbers and images of the cartoon Snow White and the 7 dwarfs.
Objects are placed on these shelves: a photograph, a pine cone, a small bowl, an apple,.. All these objects will be used by the character, at a key moment in the scene. They carry within them a symbolic charge. These shelves represent the schematic operation of the machine, a series of alternating symbols in boxes on an infinite ribbon. The rest of the décor, including the furniture from the 50s, the desk, the chair, the telephone, the cigarette on stage, the clothes, everything is authentic, and forces projection and time travel. The discourse also seems to be constructed like the machine.
"I like recurring words," says Turing, and that's how he outsmarted Enigma. The progression of speech, and therefore of action, is done by alternating flashbacks and the present. Turing will capture and reuse words spoken by the other character: "I love mansions". This repetition recalls a memory and begins the end of the piece, so two different temporalities are played with the repetition of a single word. This return to the memory of the manor, makes it possible to bring keys to understanding the sentences or choices that Holding will make. Regarding the final scene, it is the repetition of the exhibition scene. Simon recounts in his tirade "the story of a man who runs (…) to solve the equation with unknown number and (…) thus finding the meaning of the world". The play ends in the same way, with the same words, but spoken by two voices, the voice of Turing and that of the man of the future. Benchenafi dressed as a modern man, dressed like us, pays tribute to him when his time did not.
Two actors, 5 roles and the role of the audience.
Benchenafi, metamorphoses into 4 different characters. Sergeant Ross, clever, tenacious, perceptive, conscientious. Arnold drunk, greedy, dishonest, gruff and Hugh, pretentious, ambitious, competitive. Benchenafi flips his acting jacket over to take on another role in seconds. And finally, he plays the modern man, who appears on stage as an anachronistic character. It is absolutely breathtaking and prodigious, because it appears as a multi-personal top, so much so that it is sometimes difficult to recognize it as the transitions are short and the characters so opposite.
What is also appreciable is that the public has a role, at least, it is given one. He participates in two different ways.
The first is that we have made public twice. We were spectators of the Turing conference in 2021 and in the 40s, the audience is enlightened, and we listen attentively to his demonstration: "do machines think? ». This question remains disconcerting for these two audiences. Then something absolutely fabulous happened. It was like a test, it was a real question. We were asked our opinion, so the sound of a few faint applause echoed through the precincts, copying and simulating the meager enthusiasm of the conference spectators at the time. But in the room of 2021, only one man spontaneously and really applauded, he was the only one. This man would probably have applauded also in the 40s, he was a spirit ready to accept these new destabilizing ideas. It was a very interesting theatrical experience in participatory manipulation of the audience.
For the second participation, the piece uses the principle of double enunciation. The actor speaks to the audience as an aside. This is mostly done by Turing. Simon plays the role of a stutterer and a man prey, it seems, to some autistic forms. His performance is incredibly well done. Paradoxically what a mastery of language to play a stutterer! It is an articulatory effort to applaud. This is a feat, especially since he also plays the role of the narrator. Thus, he alternates, narration and play. During his narrative passages or comments, on what he thinks or feels, he turns to the audience, speaks to us, pauses the scene in the background, and then he remerges into the game. We then feel close to Turing, we develop affection and admiration for this genius, who is called crazy because he is too different. He is a character who sacrifices himself, who has served his country, who has served humanity in the shadows. Turing has a theatrical ending, worthy of a movie hero, animated film hero. His fascination with Snow White, the first cartoon of the time, will influence his final action. There is almost something Christic in the sacrifice of his person, this man out of step with his time, because he is stuttering, homosexual, mild autistic, designated as crazy eats "the forbidden fruit", but will at least leave christ (opher) to posterity and live again through him.
To recap, the staging and the setting offer us time travel to the heart of an era that has marked consciences. As for the actors' acting, the respective talents are exercised on stage and the two together make the play a virtuosity.
This piece updates the story of a man, still unknown for some, who influenced the course of history. The Turing machine is the story of a singular man who may have been the only one to outsmart Enigma. It will create the ancestor of our thinking machines. It is the story of a sacrifice of a life, or a genius that has been sacrificed, but fortunately, the genius leaves traces behind that serve posterity. There is something didactic in this play, you learn something, and associating with this genius awakens the spirit.
