A comedy by Jean-Pierre Martinez
Translation by the author
After inviting the fiancé’s parents over to get acquainted and plan the wedding, they soon realize that the parents of the perfect son-in-law don’t always make for perfect in-laws…
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The song from the play. Lyrics and music Jean-Pierre Martinez. This song may be used as part of a stage production, simple request to the author and without any additional fees. The audio file is available upon request, subject to prior authorization from the author for the use of the play’s text.
You Don’t Get to Choose Your Children’s In-Laws…
With their daughter Sonia about to marry Djamel, Antoine and Juliette invite the young man’s parents over for drinks so that they can get to know one another and discuss the wedding. The meeting begins with awkward remarks and prejudices before gradually taking a more disturbing turn: behind Aymar and Jasmina’s respectable appearance emerges a couple of future in-laws whom Antoine and Juliette would ultimately prefer to keep as far away as possible.
The play begins with a classic family-comedy situation: the meeting of two couples who would never have had any reason to associate with one another were it not for their children’s love. At first, the comedy arises from the gap between the tolerance Antoine and Juliette claim to embody and the prejudices they constantly reveal about their future son-in-law’s presumed origins or religion. But Aymar and Jasmina’s arrival gradually reverses the balance of power: pathological jealousy, infidelity, a firearm, family tragedies, plans to move in just across the street… Sonia’s parents eventually find themselves trying to make their own family seem as undesirable as possible.
The play’s ingenuity lies in this mirror construction. Each couple tries to discourage the other while pretending to be delighted about the marriage. The final reversal reveals that Aymar and Jasmina were playing a part too, deliberately piling up the most outrageous revelations in order to avoid becoming too close to their future in-laws. Without realising it, both families were therefore pursuing exactly the same goal.
Beneath the appearance of a boulevard comedy built on misunderstandings, revelations and escalating absurdity, Des beaux-parents presque parfaits thus subverts the traditional theme of marriage: it is not the children who hesitate to unite, but their parents who dread the ties that this union will impose upon them. The play becomes a comedy about the family one acquires through marriage — a family one does not choose, but with whom one will nevertheless have to learn to live.