Patrick Groulx Revives Characters in Trop longtemps seul at Théâtre St-Denis
patrick groulx brought Trop longtemps seul to the Théâtre St-Denis on Tuesday for his fifth show, and he did it by turning away from the stripped-down stand-up that defined his three previous outings. Instead of a microphone, stool and bottle of water, he reopened the door to characters, costumes and exaggeration.
That shift is the point of the evening. Groulx’s new material centers on a crisis of the fifties and solitude, with his children gone from home and a new partner living in Outaouais.
Théâtre St-Denis on Tuesday
Tuesday’s presentation at the Théâtre St-Denis placed the show in front of the kind of audience that knows Groulx from a long run of comedy identities, including the former host of Jobs de bras. The staging leaned into that history: eight square screens hung behind him, carrying images of his most popular characters and the beginning of his career.
Groulx arrived with his guitar slung over his shoulder, then moved into the material that made the night feel less like a reset than a return. The review says he is one of the best at amplifying laughter through exaggeration, and that quality suited a show built around familiar figures rather than the bare-bones setup of his recent work.
Curé Poirier Returns
One of those figures is curé Poirier, who still shouts “Vos yeules !” in the show. Bringing that character back matters because Groulx has spent years working in a more American-style stand-up format, and this production brings two characters back into the frame after three previous shows built around the microphone-and-stool approach.
The nostalgic pull is not just cosmetic. Characters with costumes and wigs were already associated with a more old-fashioned comedy style between 2005 and 2010, and Groulx’s decision to revive them gives Trop longtemps seul a different shape from the work that preceded it. That makes the show feel less like a clean break than a comedian using old tools to talk about a new stage of life.
Characters Over Microphones
For readers tracking Groulx’s trajectory, the practical takeaway is simple: Trop longtemps seul is not a repeat of the last three shows. It marks a return to two-character comedy, to projection-heavy staging, and to material built around aging, solitude and domestic distance rather than the leaner stand-up template he had used before.
That choice gives him a wider comic palette and a clearer identity onstage. If you know Groulx for the older character work, this is the show that brings it back; if you only know the later stand-up years, this is the version that explains why those costumes and voices still fit him.
