Force Bleus

Musical Documentary Theater
Duration: 1h 10m
Ages 14 and up
Premiere: April 2026

Summary:

Thomas Gourdy is the son, grandson, and great-grandson of police officers. As a child, he grew up with the heroic tales of a father who was a “voltigeur” (motorized officer) for the Paris Police Prefecture, performing as an acrobat in popular shows during the late 1980s. As an adult, he witnesses a police check that he finds unbearable; he intervenes, films it, and subsequently appears in court. Throughout the hearing, childhood figures reappear, memories resurface, and a truth emerges: his father also worked at night, during the era of the motorized voltigeurs implicated in the death of Malik Oussekine. Force Bleus follows this inner investigation, at the intersection where family history meets political history.

“Force Bleus”: the project

Force Bleus is based on an event experienced by Thomas Gourdy in 2017, during a humiliating police check he witnessed in Paris. The ensuing trial became the starting point for a broader investigation: where does this anger come from, and to which memories is it linked?

By tracing his own lineage, Thomas Gourdy opens an inquiry into invisible transmissions, family loyalties, silences, and the contradictions that span several generations of police officers. The show moves along the edge of personal narrative, testimony, archives, and collective history. It questions how the intimate is shaped by institutions, and how a family memory can unknowingly contain a piece of public history.

Du récit intime à l’histoire collective

Dans la famille Gourdy, on est policier de père en fils. D’une génération à l’autre, les corps, les gestes, les mots et les loyautés se transmettent. Force Bleus traverse cette généalogie sans chercher à la refermer. Le spectacle fait entendre plusieurs voix : celles du père, du grand-père, du juge, d’un policier du passé, de témoins d’aujourd’hui, et celle de Thomas lui-même. Chaque voix déplace la précédente, ouvre une autre version des faits, révèle un angle mort.

Le récit chemine depuis l’enfance, depuis ce moment où les figures de l’autorité ont encore le visage des héros. Puis viennent les failles, les silences, les contradictions, les documents, les souvenirs déformés ou tardivement compris. La scène devient alors un espace d’adresse et de confrontation, où l’on tente de regarder en face ce qui a été transmis.

La Forme Scénique

Force Bleus se déploie comme une forme scénique légère, pensée pour mettre le réel au travail sans l’illustrer. Le spectacle s’appuie sur la présence de Thomas Gourdy au plateau, sur un jeu de glissements entre les voix, sur des objets et des archives, et sur la musique jouée en direct par Alexandre du Closel.

Le tribunal, la mémoire familiale et l’enquête intime composent un même espace mental. La musique ne vient pas accompagner le récit : elle en ouvre les strates souterraines, prolonge les contradictions, fait entendre ce qui résiste aux mots. Le plateau accueille ainsi une polyphonie de présences, entre parole, adresse, évocation et écoute.

Parcours de la Création :

Après plusieurs années d’écriture et de recherche, Force Bleus a d’abord donné lieu à une première forme radiophonique, un “Oratorio Documentaire”, présentée en novembre 2025 à Metz et à Villerupt. Le projet arrive aujourd’hui à sa version plateau, précédée d’une sortie de résidence à la Kulturfabrik d’Esch-sur-Alzette, avant sa création au Théâtre de Belleville à Paris.

Voici la traduction de la suite de la présentation pour Force Bleus, avec l’intégration de vos balises HTML :

From personal narrative to collective history

In the Gourdy family, they are police officers from father to son. From one generation to the next, bodies, gestures, words, and loyalties are passed down. Force Bleus traverses this genealogy without seeking to seal it off. The show gives voice to several perspectives: those of the father, the grandfather, the judge, a police officer from the past, witnesses of today, and Thomas himself. Each voice shifts the previous one, opens another version of the facts, and reveals a blind spot.

The narrative travels from childhood, from that moment when authority figures still wear the faces of heroes. Then come the cracks, the silences, the contradictions, the documents, and the memories that are distorted or understood only much later. The stage then becomes a space of direct address and confrontation, where one attempts to look squarely at what has been transmitted.

The Scenic Form

Force Bleus unfolds as a lightweight stage form, designed to put reality to work without merely illustrating it. The show relies on Thomas Gourdy’s presence on stage, a play of shifting voices, objects and archives, and live music performed by Alexandre du Closel.

The courtroom, family memory, and intimate inquiry compose a single mental space. The music does not simply accompany the story: it opens up its subterranean layers, extends its contradictions, and gives voice to what resists words. The stage thus hosts a polyphony of presences, between speech, address, evocation, and listening.

Creation Journey:

After several years of writing and research, Force Bleus first led to an initial radio form—a “Documentary Oratorio”—presented in November 2025 in Metz and Villerupt. Today, the project reaches its stage version, preceded by a residency showing at the Kulturfabrik in Esch-sur-Alzette, before its premiere at the Théâtre de Belleville in Paris.

Touring

Lightweight form · 3 people on tour · 1.5 technical shifts for set-up · suitable for non-equipped venues and non-traditional spaces

Related Activities

Collaborations with law schools and university contexts can be envisioned in the wake of the Mock Trial laboratory, developed with the Metz Faculty of Law – University of Lorraine.