This translation was made possible by a grant from Canada Council for the Arts.
And If One Night
By Lisa L’Heureux | Translated by Mishka Lavigne Translated from ET SI UN SOIR (Quebec, Canada)
“Modern and poetic…four characters whose desires for true human contact seek to transcend the virtuality of screens and the superficiality of online relationships…Lisa L’Heureux’s characters use the darkness of night to reveal their true colors. Even if they’re hide behind an avatar or keyboard to communicate…Mia, Danielle, Anita and Joseph emerge from the shadows with courage and clumsiness as believable as it is touching. Her pen rich with accuracy and affection, Lisa L’Heureux portrays a generation in search of self and real, concrete meaning to give to its intimacy. “– ici.radio-canada.ca
In a grey apartment building, four characters live in a dreamlike space in which time moves forward without moving, sometimes in an offbeat and unsettling way. Written as a fragmented dream, this choral piece draws its inspiration from the night to dive into zones of human intimacy that are often hidden. Here, inaction, the moment that precedes the act, is the root of all tension.
Et si un soir was directed by Lisa L’Heureux, produced by Théâtre Rouge Écarlate with the support of Théâtre du Trillium, Nouvelle Scène Gilles-Desjardins in Ottawa, 2018 and received a residency at Chartreuse-lez-Avignon, France, 2015. It was a shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award French Language Drama 2019, the Prix du livre d’Ottawa (2019) and the Emerging Author Award Prix littéraire Émergence de l’AAOF (2019).
It was the recipient of the Prix littéraire Trillium (2019) and Lisa’s production won the Prix Rideau, Outstanding Production Award.
This translation was made possible by a grant from Canada Council for the Arts.
Et si un soir (2018) | A Théâtre Rouge Écarlate production, with the support of Théâtre du Trillium, presented at La Nouvelle Scène Gilles Desjardins. | Photo credit: Jonathan Lorange
About the playwright
LISA L’HEUREUX
LISA L’HEUREUX (She, her, hers) is an Ottawa-based playwright, director, and dramaturg. She is a graduate of University of Ottawa (B.A. in Theatre and History) and of University of British Columbia (M.A. in Theatre Research). With her company, Théâtre Rouge Écarlate, she has created Ciseaux, Pour l’hiver (Prix Jacques-Poirier 2017), and Et si un soir, cocreated Proximité and directed Projet D. She has had playwright residencies in Belgium (Mariemont, CED-WB), France (La Chartreuse de Villeneuve les Avignon) and with Théâtre du Trillium (Ottawa). She has contributed to many collaborative pieces, such as À quoi ça sert d’être brillant si t’éclaires personne (NAC French Theatre). As a dramaturg, Lisa worked with Satellite Théâtre (Moncton) and with Sudbury playwright Antoine Côté Legault. She is completed a podcast version of Et si un soir.
About the translator
Mishka Lavigne
Mishka Lavigne (She,her, hers) is a playwright and literary translator based in Ottawa/Gatineau. Her translation work for theatre has been seen in Ottawa, Montreal, and France. Héritage, her translation of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun opened the 2019-2020 season at Duceppe in Montreal. She is currently working on a French translation of Karen Hines’ All The Little Animals I Have Eaten. Her translations of poetry were published in Ontario and Québec, included the recently published Cette blessure est un territoire, a French translation of Billy-Ray Belcourt’s Griffin Poetry Prize winning collection This Wound is a World. Her own works include Cinéma (Théâtre la Catapulte and Théâtre Belvédère.), Vigile (Théâtre Rouge Écarlate). Her play Havre recently won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama (French) and was shortlisted for the Prix Michel-Tremblay.
Translation Showcase
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FAIRE DES ENFANTS (RIVER BED) By Eric Noel | Translated by Jordan Arseneault with British Equity WSW London Branch (London, UK)
Special thanks to actors Michèle Belgrand, Ryan Grossett, Will Lewis, Louis Pieris, Dannie Pye, Nicole Wood and the always wonderful Lola May for her organizing.
SYNOPSIS: Written in two acts – “Philadelphie” and “Assomption”– the play is a diptych of Montreal 20something rebellion and a gothic family drama that will be familiar to anyone who has ever tried to leave their suburban home forever.
Philippe is 24 years old, he refuses to be loved. He is self destructing, burning for the dark light: drugs, sex, alcohol, prostitution. One Sunday, very early in the morning, he and his mother wake up at the same time. He’s in the middle of a bad trip, in a strange bed, between two people he doesn’t know; she has nightmares, alone in her house of Assumption. He senses she’s trying to warn him; she senses something terrible has happened.
PRODUCTION HISTORY: Faire des enfants is a visceral and poetic text combining naturalism, surrealism in a blend of lush and gritty language. Receiving the le Prix Gratien-Gélinas in 2010, it was followed by a successful month-long run at Montreal’s prestigious Quat’sous theatre the next year, receiving critical acclaim for its uncanny depiction of grief and strong dialogue. It was immediately translated into German by Frank Weigand under the title Kinder machen and was presented at a series of stage readings. In 2012 it was published by Theater der Zeit.
“The 25-year-old author has brought us a dark and luminous text, a precursor to a beautiful work to come…With a talent and urgency to say that shakes the viewer from his first lines, Fair des enfants touches us right to the heart…At first, we think of Brad Fraser’s plays, wondering where all this sex will lead us. Then there are other characters: Philip’s best friend, mother, father and sister [the main character]. Fair des enfants then transcends the description of an environment to fly to another universe. And touch the universal. The work exposes an essential truth: the quest for love. Philip considers himself unworthy of affection; his quest thus turns into an enterprise of self-destruction. He plunges into tragedy. Pure and sublime.” – Luc Boulanger, Le Devoir, March 11, 2010
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT: Eric Noel
Eric Noel is a Quebecois playwright and 2009 graduated of Canada’s National Theatre School French language writing program. He is the author of three contemporary plays in Faire des enfants (2009), Tirade pour Henri (2010) et Ces regards amoureux de garçons altérés (2015). He is also the author of a libretto for an opera by Vincent-Olivier Gagnon, Sans électricité, les oiseaux disparaissent (2009), and the children’s theatre piece La Mère, le Père, le Petit et le Grand (2021). In 2018, he adapted Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince for Theatre La Roulotte with “Asteroid B 612” (2021).
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR: Jordan Arseneault
Jordan Arseneault (b. New Brunswick, 1980) is a critic, drag performer, social artist, meeting facilitator and translator. His staged work and participative workshops address issues of criminalization, stigma, mental health, HIV/AIDS, addiction, biculturalism, queerness and community. Former editor of Quebec’s only English language monthly for the LGBT community, 2Bmag (2010-2013), his reviews and articles have been published in Maisonneuve, Nightlife.ca, Forget the Box. He currently lives in Montreal.
Translation commissioned and developed by Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal and the Cole Foundation Award for Emerging Translators.
THE SHOE By David Paquet | Translated by Leanna Brodie with British Equity WSW London Branch (London, UK)
Special thanks to Lola May, Natasha Mendez, David Mildon, Caroline Moroney (London, UK), Sonja Zobel (Salzburg, Austria), translator Leanna Brodie (Vancouver, Canada) and playwright David Paquet (Montreal, Canada).
Melanie’s son Benoit, age 8, has a pain that won’t go away, so she takes him to the dentist. Naturally, this results in an epic meltdown. With Benoit, nothing is ever simple… In the end, Melanie – with the help of a kindly alcoholic receptionist, and a dentist who prefers plants to people – must face the fact that her son’s problems are much larger than a simple toothache. Le Soulier is a bipolar comedy, a hilarious and unsettling play in which empathy triumphs over illness.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT David Paquet
David Paquet won the Governor General’s Award for French-language drama at the 2010 Governor General’s Awards, and the Prix Michel-Tremblay, for his play Porc-épic. His other plays have included 2h14, Appels entrants illimités, Le brasier and Papiers mâchés.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR Leanna Brodie
Leanna Brodie is an actor, playwright, and translator whose passions include lifting up the stories and voices of women, and championing a new generation of French-Canadian playwrights by transmitting their extraordinary theatrical visions into the English language. Her original plays The Vic, For Home and Country, The Book of Esther, and Schoolhouse (Talon Books) have been performed across Canada. Her translations include Christian Bégin’s After Me and Why Are You Crying?; Louise Bombardier’s My Mother Dog; Annie Brocoli’s Stardust; Rébecca Déraspe’s You Are Happy, I Am William, and Gametes; Amélie Dumoulin’s Violette; Sébastien Harrisson’s From Alaska and Two-Part Inventions; Catherine Léger’s Opium_37 and I Lost My Husband!; David Paquet’s Wildfire and The Shoe; Olivier Sylvestre’s The Paradise Arms; Philippe Soldevila’s Tales of the Moon; Larry Tremblay’s Panda Panda; and multiple plays by Hélène Ducharme of Théâtre Motus, whose acclaimed, Dora Award-winning Baobab continues to tour China and the Americas after more than 600 performances.
A GLIMPSE INTO NEW TRANSLATION INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT DIGITAL SERIES
Bouche Theatre Collective & British Equity London
STILL LIFE
By Marie-Ève Milot & Marie-Claude St-Laurent Translated by Rhiannon Collett Translated from Chienne(S)
Featuring Chantelle St Clair, Molly Small, Jamie Newel, Mary J Tillett, and Hemi Yeroham | Produced by Lola May & Jack Paterson
“…this show crystallizes the revival of Quebec’s feminist theatre, it is a vibrant homage to art, the place of women to challenge everything, to turn everything upside down, to move from the shadows to the light, from death to life, from imprisonment to freedom.” – Le Devoir
On her 30th birthday a woman locks herself in her apartment. Paralysed by fear, she examines the shards of her life with a mysterious young woman. This is a poetic and raw portrait of anxiety disorders and their causes.
Created with extensive research with le Centre d’études sur le stress humain, Chienne(s) was produced by Le Centre du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui (CTD’A). The production was presented at la Salle Jean-Claude-Germain to sold out houses at Montreal’s Centre du théatre d’aujourd’hui.
This translation was commisioned by Bouche Theatre Collective with the support of Canada Council for the Arts.
Meet our Playwrights & Translator
About the playwrights
Marie-Ève Milot & Marie-Claude St-Laurent are the Artistic Directors of Théâtre de l’Affamée. Mandated to invest in a (re) new Feminist/feminine theatre, they create complex characters that can be identified outside the binary mode of gender, question normativity and provoke new possibilities. Active members of Femmes pour l’Équité en Théâtre (F.E.T.), they co-wrote the Jeu magazine cry t action, addressing the under-representation of women in theatre, and created reference documents for students and faculty about the under-representation of women and the systems that marginalize them. They have written 8 works together including Cour à scrap – Portrait d’une famille reconstituée, Débranchée (Unplugged) (shortlisted for the prix Louise-LaHaye 2017) and Guérilla de l’ordinaire, (shortlisted for the prix Michel-Tremblay 2020). Their essay La coalition de la robe, co-written with Marie-Claude Garneau, was published in Editions du remue-ménage in 2017. Théâtre de l’Affamée
Marie-Ève Milot
(Elle)
Since graduating l’École de théâtre du Cégep de Saint-Hyacinthe, Marie-Eve Milot has been deeply involved in the theatre world. As an actress, she has collaborated with Hugo Bélanger (Princess Turandot, Pinocchio, Peter et Alice), Marc Beaupré (Ce samedi il pleuvait), Serge Denoncourt (Thérèse et Pierrette à l’École des Saints-Anges), Geneviève L. Blais (Si les oiseaux, Local B-1717) and Sébastien David Scratch. She was seen le Petit Théâtre de La Colline in Paris, in Les barbelés by Annick Lefebvre, staged by Alexia Boerger, and then remounted the show at the Théâtre de Quat’Sous. She can be seen on large and small screen (Les pays d’en haut, 5e rang).
Marie-Claude St-Laurent
(Elle)
Marie-Claude St-Laurent is an actor, author, feminist activist, co-editor of La Nef aux Éditions du remue-ménage. On the small screen, she was seen in the popular youth show Vrak La vie and is more recently as a cast member in L’écrivain public III and des Sioui-Bacon V. On stage, she produced Guérilla de l’ordinaire, Chienne(s), Toc Toc, Grease and Aller chercher demain. A member of the steering committee of Espace Go, and collaborated in the research study conducted by the RéQEF.
About the translator
Rhiannon Collett
(They, Them, Theirs)
Rhiannon Collett (they/them) is an award-winning non-binary playwright, performer, director and translator based in Vancouver. They are interested in interdisciplinary creation processes, sexual labour, gender performativity and science fiction. Their works include Miranda & Dave Begin Again, Wasp, Tragic Queens, and The Kissing Game, an urban fantasy revenge drama that explores love, betrayal, friendship and identity commissioned by Youtheatre (Montreal) and Young People’s Theatre (Toronto). It won the Montreal English Theatre Award for Outstanding New Text.
Rhiannon’s work has been presented internationally at the LungA festival in Seyðisfjörður, Iceland, and at the Festival les Petites Formes in Fort-de-France, Martinique. Last year they were artist-in-residence at the Mauser Eco House in Costa Rica, and the Performing Arts Forum in St. Erme, France. www.rhiannoncollett.com
By Marie-Claude Verdier | Translated by Alexis Diamond
Pan Canadian Remote Remote New Translation Workshop 2020
Supported by
ANDY’S GONE
By Marie-Claude Verdier | Translated by Alexis Diamond Translated from ANDY’S GONE (Quebec, Canada)
With Alexis Diamond (Montreal), Jenna Thorne (London, UK), Sabrina Vellani and Jack Paterson (Vancouver)
In a modern reimagining, a young teen follows the footsteps of Antigone the Rebel defying a contemporary Creon. The City is in a state of emergency and Alison believes there is something else going on… Andy’s Gone was produced by Acessor E sempre (France) and presented in Avignon.
This workshop is made possible by a grant from Canada Council for the Arts.
Andy’s Gone | Compagnie Adesso e sempre in coproduction with Sortie Ouest domaine départemental d’art et de culture de Bayssan. Photo: Marc Ginot
About the playwright
Marie-Claude Verdier
Marie-Claude Verdier (She, her, hers) was a dramaturge at CEAD from 2010 to 2013. Her first play, Je n’y suis plus, was produced with le Théâtre Français du Centre National des Arts in 2013. Her play Nous autres antipodes was nominated for the Prix Gratien-Gélinas. Andy’s Gone, a loose adaptation of Antigone for teens, was produced by the French Acessor E sempre and presented in Avignon.
About the translator
Alexis Diamond
Alexis Diamond (She, her, hers) is a Montreal-based theatre artist and translator. Her award-winning plays, operas and translations for all ages have been presented across Canada and internationally. The 2018-19 season has seen the premiere of the family-oriented piece for orchestra and narrator Making Light, penned with Abigail Richardson (Calgary Philharmonic), and two other translations, for Talisman Theatre and Le Petit Théâtre de Sherbrooke. With composer Stephanie Moore, Alexis is currently creating Zoom-Boum-Boum, an electroacoustic piece for very young audiences (Jeunesses Musicales Canada).
