November 11, 2005 -

Ottawa, Ontario -- After the stunning season opener Les Reines, written by Normand Chaurette and directed by Denis Marleau, the National Arts Centre (NAC) French Theatre’s 2005–06 season continues with one of Chaurette’s early works, La Société de Métis (1983), in the NAC Studio November 23 through 26. This new production is directed by Joël Beddows (artistic director of Ottawa’s Théâtre la Catapulte and director of the acclaimed Testament du couturier by Michel Ouellette) in his NAC directorial debut, and coproduced by Théâtre la Catapulte, the NAC French Theatre, Théâtre Blanc (Quebec) and the Théâtre français de Toronto. Following its run at the NAC the production will tour to the Périscope de Québec (January 24–February 12, 2006) and Toronto’s Berkeley Street Theatre (February 15–26, 2006).

To stage this mysterious tale whose ghostly characters produce a dizzying torrent of words while dreaming of being immortalized in permanent (and silent!) works of art, Joël Beddows has assembled a team of creative artists from Ottawa, Toronto and Quebec. Featured in the cast are two actors from Quebec and two from Toronto, with whom Beddows is working for the first time: Érika Gagnon (as the flamboyant and enigmatic millionairess Zoé Pé), Hugo Lamarre (as Octave Gredind, handsome, sensual and blind), Lina Blais (as Pamela Dickson, a fiery alcoholic and cousin of the famous pianist Anthony Dickson), and Guy Mignault (as Casimir Flore, the noble and rational fire chief). Set design is by Jean Hazel, artistic director of Quebec’s Théâtre Blanc, in his first collaboration with Joël Beddows. Rounding out the creative team are four of Beddows’s longtime colleagues: lighting designer Glen Charles Landry (Le Testament du couturier), costume, wig and makeup designer Isabelle Bélisle (Safari de banlieue),sound designer Jules Bonin-Ducharme (Cette fille-là/The Shape of a Girl), and staging consultant Dominique Lafon (Faust: Chroniques de la démesure).

Métis-sur-Mer, July 1954

Overlooking the majestic St. Lawrence, the imperious Zoé Pé reigns supreme over Métis and its gardens, attended by three guests—Octave, Pamela and Casimir—whose friendship she has bought with lavish gifts. One fine summer day she spies an artist, over there at the edge of the marsh, painting her and her entourage from afar. From that moment on, Zoé has only one obsession: to acquire those paintings. Unfortunately for her, the artist isn’t interested in selling. Money, flattery, cajolery, threats . . . nothing works. Nothing? Really?

Published by Leméac in 1983, La Société de Métis premiered in Chicoutimi in 1986 in a production by Les Têtes heureuses, directed by Isabelle Villeneuve. It was remounted the following year by Montreal’s Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui, directed by Joseph Satin-Gelais; an Italian translation directed by Alice Ronfard was staged in 1992 at the Teatro La Limonaia in Florence as part of the Intercity Festival. Even in this early work—“a young man’s play,” as the author says—Chaurette explores many of the concepts that have come to define his uniquely poetic style: lyrical, almost musical dialogue, fragmentary and illusory, serious subject matter combined with unexpected humour, the interplay of repeated phrases and themes (absence/presence, beauty/ugliness, truth/illusion), breathing life into a cast of characters sprung from a matchless imagination. Shot through with elements of the myth of Narcissus, built around Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky’s famous piano suite, Pictures at an Exhibition (1874), La Société de Métis takes a wryly amused look at the role of art (high and low) in modern society, and—with the help of a handful of slightly surreal characters wandering around in that little piece of Paradise, the Gardens of Métis—the search for immortality that has haunted humankind ever since the “I” began to take precedence over God.

La Société de Métis
Written by Normand Chaurette / Directed by Joël Beddows
With Lina Blais, Érika Gagnon, Hugo Lamarre and Guy Mignault

Set design by Jean Hazel / Lighting design by Glen Charles Landry
Costumes, wigs and makeup by Isabelle Bélisle
Soundscape by Jules Bonin-Ducharme / Staging consultant: Dominique Lafon
Production stage manager: Pierre-Paul Mongeon
Tour stage manager (Toronto and Quebec): France Boily
Production director: Céline Paquet

Coproduced by
Théâtre la Catapulte (Ottawa), the National Arts Centre French Theatre (Ottawa), the Théâtre français de Toronto, and the Théâtre Blanc (Quebec)

November 23, 24, 25 & 26, 2005 at 20:00 in the NAC Studio

Tickets $30.50 (Students $16.25)
On sale at the NAC Box Office (no service charges), through Ticketmaster (at all Ticketmaster outlets or by ‘phone, 613-755-1111) or online at www.nac-cna.ca

Groups of 10 or more receive up to 20% off regular ticket prices. For more information, please contact (613) 947-7000, ext. 384, or grp@nac-cna.ca

Learning Activities

Sunday, November 20 at 13:00
To put you in the spirit of the play, you’re invited to a free performance of the musical work that inspired Normand Chaurette’s La Société de Métis: the piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition, by Mussorgsky, performed by Jean Desmarais. Freiman Hall, Perez Building, University of Ottawa (610 Cumberland). The recital will be accompanied by projections of sketches by Cheryl Mazak. Also on the programme: works by Bach and Beethoven (the “Appassionnata” Sonata).

Wednesday, November 23 following the performance
Opening-night question-and-answer session with the cast and director.
Host: Paul Lefebvre.

Friday, November 25 following the performance
Presentation by Pascal Riendeau, Associate Professor, Department of French Studies,
University of Toronto, and author of La Cohérence fictive, an overview of the work of Normand Chaurette (Nuit blanche éditeur, 1997).
Host: Paul Lefebvre.

About the playwright
Writer, translator, librettist and musician Normand Chaurette has published some 15 plays since 1980, including Provincetown Playhouse, juillet 1919, j’avais 19 ans (translated as Provincetown Playhouse, July 1919), 1981; Fragments d’une lettre d’adieu lus par des géologues (Fragments of a Farewell Letter Read by Geologists), 1986; Les Reines (The Queens), 1991; Le Passage de l’Indiana, 1996 (winner of the 1996 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama and the 1998 Masque for Best Original Script); Stabat Mater I, 1997;Stabat Mater II, 1999; and Le Petit Köchel (The Concise Köchel), 2000 (winner of the 2001 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama and the 2002 Masque for Best Original Script). His plays are published jointly by Leméac Éditeur and Actes Sud–Papiers. He has also written a novel, Scènes d’enfants (1999), and several short stories, most of them published by Leméac. Normand Chaurette’s plays have been widely produced across Canada (Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton, Vancouver), in the U.S. (New York and other major centres) and in Europe (Paris, Brussels, Florence, Barcelona, Edinburgh). His most recent plays have been translated into English, Italian, Catalan, Spanish and German.

Mr. Chaurette is a respected translator of the works of William Shakespeare, including Le Songe d’une nuit d’été (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) for Quebec’s Théâtre du Trident, directed by Robert Lepage (1996 Masque for Outstanding Translation); and La Nuit des rois (Twelfth Night) for Montreal’s Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, directed by Yves Desgagnés (2004 Masque for Outstanding Translation). Other translations include Schiller’s Marie Stuart for Montreal’s Nouvelle Compagnie Théâtrale, and Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler for the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde.

One of the few Canadian playwrights to have had their work staged at the Comédie-Française and the Avignon Festival, Normand Chaurette has established himself as one of the leading French-language writers in theatre today.

About the director
Joël Beddows—director, translator, researcher and teacher—is known for his energy and his unswerving commitment to emerging Franco-Ontarian artists and playwrights. In the summer of 1998 he was appointed Artistic Director of Ottawa’s Théâtre la Catapulte, and the company has blossomed under his leadership, earning a 2001 Lieutenant-Governor’s Arts Award and the 2003 Ontario Minister of Culture Award for the quality of its productions for young audiences, particularly Stephan Cloutier’s Safari de banlieue, which Mr. Beddows directed.

His production of Faust: Chroniques de la démesure by Richard J. Léger earned him the Capital Critics Circle (CCC)’s Palme for Best Ottawa-Gatineau Production 2000–01; he received this honour a second time in 2002–03 for his staging of Michel Ouellette’s Le Testament du couturier, which also won the 2003 Masque for Best Franco-Canadian Production. His production of Joan MacLeod’s Cette fille-là (The Shape of a Girl) received Vancouver’s Jessie Richardson Award for Best Production for Young Audiences, 2004–05.

In September 2005 Joël Beddows received the Ontario Arts Council’s John Hirsch Director’s Award. This award, consisting of a cash prize of $5,000, is given every three years to Ontario’s most promising upcoming theatre director.

Joël Beddows is also on the teaching faculty of the University of Ottawa Theatre Department.

The NAC French Theatre gratefully acknowledges its media partners for La Société de Métis: Voir, Le Droit, Transcontinental Media, and Radio-Canada (La Première Chaîne, 90.7 FM).

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Information:
Guy Warin
Communications & Media Relations Officer
French Theatre – Canada’s National Arts Centre
(613) 947-7000 or 1 866 850-2787, ext. 759
gwarin@nac-cna.ca