I think, for me...part of why I do ship it, and why I still ship it so strongly after all these years, is specifically that there’s this interesting sense of symmetry between the two of them. If it was *just* Lazare torturing Ronan, whether physically or emotionally, I’m not certain I’d really be into it -- I love my enemies to lovers as much as anyone, but it wouldn’t be particularly interesting to me. (I think this is why, while I think that the Toho production is the best in a number of ways, it doesn’t have my favorite Peyronan dynamic, not the least because, imo, Lazare goes from being an enemy who’s very specific to *Ronan* and his plotline to more of a generic boogeyman of the Revolution.)
*Something* about Ronan gets really, deeply under Lazare’s skin, and my suspicion is that it’s simply because Lazare’s never had someone stand up to him like that. What’s interesting, imo, is that in both the Takarazuka and French, Lazare behaves differently around Ronan than in his usual appearances.
When we first see him in the Takarazuka, it’s very much business as usual for him. Go to the village, arrest the peasants, rinse and repeat. There’s no emotion. He’s facing away from the action, not really involved in it. He’s probably done this dozens of times at this point over the years, it’s routine.
When Ronan comes in though? He turns to him, even stepping on Papa Mazurier in order to shut him up when he tells him that Ronan isn’t the one he’s interested in. He breaks Lazare out of his apathy, and Lazare, in turn, alternates between being a little mocking towards Ronan, being furious, and also....oddly vulnerable, like, somewhere deep inside, he might actually be slightly shaken. We can also see it in the French as well.
Lazare is facing towards the audience, not paying attention to anything. There could be three men there, there could be a hundred. It wouldn’t matter.
Ronan gets into his face, and he forces Lazare to meet him one on one, face to face, looking him in the eye. We actually see Lazare losing a little bit of ground in this as well -- he doesn’t outwardly step back, but he also loses a little bit of ground to Ronan in their battle of wills there. One thing that the French did that no other production has followed up on since, which I really liked, is having the two of them getting into a physical fight -- It’s Lazare going from very detached to very physical, having total control in this situation to being one more guy, trying to punch another guy in this very chaotic situation. (And then, because he’s Lazare, he tries to regain control with his gun.)
And we see it in Maniaque as well.
In the Takarazuka, we have Lazare alternating between being frustrated, sadistic, and, at times, looking at Ronan with a sort of lovestruck look, especially when he’s asking him to abandon the Revolution.
But even when he’s pushing him away, calling him an idiot, saying that the Revolution will never succeed, there are these traces of....something resembling vulnerability.
And in the French, we see that the blocking for Maniaque makes it so that the two of them start out very distant, Lazare, again, having that clear upper hand.
But then, as it goes on, we see this...almost childlike, petty side of Lazare come out. He stops using the “voux” with Ronan, he starts to tutoyer him, he flips his scarf. In some bootlegs, I’ve even seen him sarcastically wave goodbye to Ronan before the guards lock him up. We never see him like this in any other context -- with the Estates General, he’s frustrated at Mirabeau, undoubtedly angry, but still collected, he never loses control of his sense of formality even as he’s ordering him to get out. With Louis, Artois, and Necker, he’s, again, incredibly collected and formal. Even in Nous ne Sommes, which is arguably him at his most unhinged, he’s detached slightly from the whole thing, even in the second season where he was significantly more insane.
And what’s also interesting is that, in both, you have him *very clearly remembering Ronan.* It’s been over six months at this point. Ronan was a random peasant who gave him a headache one day. But in both productions, you have him very clearly taunting him with his father’s death. (And in the Takarazuka, he even calls Ronan by name.) He’s been thinking about him.
Who is Lazare looking at in La Rue Nous Appartient? Ronan.
And in the Act 1 finale to the Zuka....
What’s interesting to me in the Zuka in particular is that, at this point...Ronan seemingly doesn’t prioritize his vengeance against Lazare like he used to (in the French, he’s still focused on revenge, but I would say that he’s starting to take a view of taking down the entire system as opposed to just his own personal revenge, he’s starting to think on a broader scale -- he’s definitely not looking at Lazare in that scene.) But Lazare, meanwhile, is clearly still fixated on him.
And, I know I just posted this, but I do love how, even in the finale, Lazare is *still looking at him.* It seems like, at this point, they’re in some sort of afterlife, able to look back on the Revolution with some amount of hindsight, and he’s still looking at Ronan.
But when Ronan approaches him? He turns away. Why? Is it some lingering guilt over ordering him to be shot? (Which is interesting in itself in the Zuka because Lazare explicitly orders a retreat after that -- there was no reason to, he could have continued the fight on, the revolutionaries were in shock over Ronan’s death, why call it off then?) Is it stubbornness, still refusing to accept the Revolution, even after all this time? I don’t know -- both could be in-character. But it’s one of the most interesting decisions that was made here (and I’ll be fascinated to see whether it pops up in the upcoming production.)
I think that, while Lazare has the upper hand in a lot of ways, physically, societally, etc., just about every single time he and Ronan go toe to toe, Lazare loses ground. He’s at his most inhuman with Ronan, but he’s also at his most human with him. We see all these little nuances and vulnerabilities that we don’t see in any of his other appearances, even as he’s also more likely to lash out (possibly because *he doesn’t like having all these feelings*) I think that Ronan very much does get under his skin in a way that no one else before him managed to do. I think that, in their own ways, they’re both obsessed with one another, but I think that Lazare, in some ways, is much more compromised than Ronan, and that there’s this sort of...cyclical nature to things -- Ronan stands up to Lazare, Lazare gets a little compromised, then gets frustrated that he’s compromised and takes it out on him, causing Ronan to stand up to him some more. And, obviously, I’m not making any claims about it being a healthy kind of obsession or a healthy kind of humanity that Lazare shows (is it better to have someone be coolly homicidal or angrily homicidal?), but I do think that, in both productions, Lazare loves Ronan as much as it is possible for him to love something, and that Ronan very likely doesn’t realize exactly how much he gets under his skin. (Especially because he never SEES Lazare in his own element, when he’s not around.) There is a reason why, usually, when I write them in a relationship, I work with the idea that, while Ronan might think that he loves Lazare more, because he’s more outwardly expressive, Lazare actually might love Ronan more, because him getting to the point of showing *any* outward expression is a big step while it comes much more naturally to Ronan. And again...is it healthy? Who knows! But he does love Ronan as much as it’s possible for him to, in the only way that he knows how to love, whatever that way is.
And I do think that....post-canon, he’s going to suddenly realize that the world is very empty without Ronan in it.