Jean-rémi Chaize, Après-moi Le Déluge - Espace Gerson, Lyon

At Espace Gerson, a singular evening with Jean-Remi Chaize and Après moi, le déluge

From the vantage point of our stage at Espace Gerson, we relish the kind of intimate, razor-sharp comedy that thrives on proximity, detail, and the faintest shift in breath. Jean-Remi Chaize arrives with Après moi, le déluge, a work that feels tailor-made for the brick-and-board honesty of our room. The show’s pulse is character: silhouettes sketched with economy and then blown into full, breathing lives through vocal nuance, posture, and rhythm. Here, in Lyon, the front row sees the micro-gestures that trigger laughter a split second before the rest; the back row catches the full composition of a life built in a look. Our team programs artists who value that kind of theatrical intimacy, and Chaize’s craft lands squarely in that house style—unshowy, musical, precise, and devastatingly funny. He makes use of negative space the way a musician uses silence; our lighting grid and close acoustics add grain and warmth, giving each metamorphosis its own timbre as the evening expands.

Current momentum, new material, and the cut of the performance

What thrills us most about welcoming Jean-Remi Chaize now is the sense of freshness and forward motion in his work. In recent months, he has refined a gallery of portraits that swing between sly melancholy and irrepressible absurdity, and Après moi, le déluge showcases that evolution with unflinching clarity. You can hear the writing in the timing and the unexpected pivots, with pieces like Le Gardien de musée, La Responsable RH, L’Influenceuse du bien-être, and Le Marathonien du dimanche threading a thematic line between our fragile need for recognition and the comic relief of failing to get it. On our stage at Espace Gerson, those vignettes breathe as theatre—each entry cue, each shadow of a smile calibrated to the meter of the room. The energy isn’t just in punchlines; it’s in the way Chaize listens to the audience, resets the pace, and lets the laughter crest. For us as a venue, this run marks the sweet spot of a comedian mid-stride: the confidence of a matured voice paired with the restlessness to test new angles night after night, making every performance a living draft.

Expect a choreography of transformations that respects the scale of Espace Gerson while exploiting it fully. Chaize operates with minimal props, sculpting figures through tilt and cadence, so our intimate sightlines become part of the dramaturgy; you’ll notice choices that would vanish on a larger stage. The evening’s arc is designed as a subtle swell—scattered confessions, casual bravado, then the deluge implied by the title: a torrent of contradictions that feel oddly familiar. Our technical crew favors warm ambers and tight specials, keeping the focus on the actor’s instrument—voice, gaze, hands—so the humor lands where it’s born, in the human detail. Outside the spotlight, the room hums with the conviviality that defines Lyon’s comedy scene: pre-show chatter at the bar, the quick hush as houselights dim, the collective intake of breath before a new character steps forward. That is the experience we champion at Espace Gerson: the living encounter between a precise artist like Jean-Remi Chaize and an audience close enough to catch the tiniest tremor as Après moi, le déluge unfolds.