The return of Mr. Jean (Lyonnet) to the Register theater, a moving reminder of the history of liberated Mende

La villa Lyonnet est libérée de la Gestapo le 19 août 1944. MIDI LIBRE – M. P

Monday August 19, 2024, the second of the two performances of "Retour de M. Jean" at the Register theater launched the week commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Mende, on August 19, 1944.

It all begins in the garden of the Villa Lyonnet, rue du Pré-Claux, in the gentle warmth of the late afternoon, this Monday August 19, 2024, in front of several dozen spectators.

Silence falls. Two resistance fighters emerge from the bushes, rifles in hand, with the sound of machine guns in the background. Suddenly, we are transported to the same place, August 19, 1944. It is the liberation of Mende. The Germans left the city the day before. And the Lyonnet house, headquarters of the Gestapo. With, in its cellars, dark torture chambers for captured resistance fighters.

Act I, the Lyonnet villa liberated, the hidden Jews return

The man with the rifle is Émile Peytavin, accompanied by a resistance fighter, Nana. They come to check that the villa is no longer occupied by the Nazis. They find Joseph Bourdon, a shadowy resistance fighter who organized the hiding of the Jews in the Cévennes mountains. Then Ella arrives, the landlady of the bar next door, French flag in hand. A Pétainist from the first hour and a resistance fighter “from the last”: “The Boches had coffee at her place every morning”,Nana gets angry. Then Jewish families arrive, Salomé, children, nephews and nieces, who have come down from the mountains. The mood is set for the party, planned for the same evening in the gardens of the villa.

Acts II, III and IV: reunions, settling of scores, the party

The spectators, divided into three groups (blue, white, red), share the following scenes. The blue group is sent to the (current) mayor's office, Place du Général-de-Gaulle. This is the reunion of Jean Lyonnet (Laurent Suau was to play the role, replaced by David Garcia, the director of the Lézard company), who has come out of hiding, and Émile Peytavin. They begin a discussion about the missing, including Henri Bourrillon. Then about the future of the Nation: “You will return to the departmental committee of Liberation”, Peytavin announces to Lyonnet. He half-confesses his love for Salomé. But he fears the return to his house.

Peytavin and Lyonnet meet at the Mende town hall. MIDI LIBRE – M. P

The following scenes take place in the Register theatre with a Dorstel, a German officer, larger than life, full of remorse but thirsty for revenge, and finally, on the terrace of the cafés, Nana and Ella (in the courtyard), with "manly" exchanges on collaboration, Semitism. Not without some allusions to the contemporary era: "I called my bar, Ella's Bar", says one. And the other answers  : "Everyone knows that you are extremely right-wing". Subtle.

Finally, later in the evening it will be the final scene in the garden of the villa. Thus began the commemorations of the liberation of Mende, 80 years later.