Our opinion:

The play opens on a bathtub. On its edges rest a bottle of Chanel N°5 and a crystal decanter containing whisky. Inside the bathtub lies Jacques de Bascher, the eccentric muse of Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent. Behind him, images of the wild dances of the Palace years flash by. Tonight, and probably for the first time, Jacques de Bascher is alone; he will not be joining the party. It is 1984, and at only 33 years old, the prince of Parisian nightlife learns that he is HIV positive.

The angle chosen by Marc Gabriel for this one-man show, in which he is both actor and playwright, is therefore that of tragedy, of a romantic hero whose decadence has sealed his premature death. Yet, during this hour-long immersion into the heart of Parisian nightlife's golden age, we laugh, and we dream a great deal too. While Jacques de Bascher embodies an Icarus with burned wings, he loses none of his magnificence; on the contrary. In his performance, Marc Gabriel shines as much through his contrasting personality as through his meticulously crafted costumes. Through the interplay of costumes, from the gingham jacket to the garter belt, Jacques de Bascher shifts from boastfulness to vulnerability, from the most seductive dandy in Paris to a lonely and wretched lover.

By alternating between different time periods and sometimes even characters, the actor juxtaposes a time of carefree abandon with a grim reality. The viewer is plunged into the fantasy of drunken evenings where Catherine Deneuve mingled with Loulou de La Falaise, then abruptly brought back to raw emotion, confronted by this man too young to die. Jacques de Bascher fears being forgotten and regrets not having had the time (or the talent) to create. But where Marc Gabriel excels, beyond an exceptionally well-written text, is in the way he reveals Jacques de Bascher's true masterpiece: himself.

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