Just over thirty years ago, a character escaped from the Théâtre du Peuple in Bussang: the knife thrower from Olivier Py’s show La Nuit au cirque. A few clues help us to follow her trail. A family name, Miss Knife; a time and place, the night and the music hall; an age, invariable, because Miss Knife has always been sixty. A singer like Barbara, an actress like Mistinguett, Miss Knife is also the old aunt you confide in. More than Olivier Py’s double, Miss Knife is a conscience. A little voice whispering in the ear of artists that freedom must always be professed so that everyone can live out their desires.
At the time of the Stonewall riots in New York in 1969, Miss Knife could neither read nor write. From this pioneering event in the LGBTQ+ struggle in the United States –which gave rise to the Pride March– Miss Knife learned a lesson: the fight for tolerance would be a pacifist one, armed only with sequined dresses and songs. Transgressive thirty years ago because she was a drag queen, Miss Knife has become a moving and endearing cabaret character, now a family show. At the Grand Foyer du Châtelet, Miss Knife is now in a duo with pianist, singer and composer Antoni Sykopoulos. And we continue to laugh and cry as we admire her in this more personal and intimate atmosphere. Because life is worth living, voluptuously, in a paradise of spleen and blues.
