April 12, 2006 -

Ottawa -- Who, better than any other French-language writer, knew how to talk about animals — and how to make them talk — if not the passionate and sensual Colette. On April 11 and 12, the French Theatre of the National Arts Centre (NAC) will team up with the NAC Orchestra and the Fourth Stage to offer its fourth and final lunchtime reading this season with Colette au pays des bêtes. For this voluptuous reading with musical accompaniment during the lunch hour, actress Maxine Turcotte will read, with her smooth and sensuous voice, some delicious texts by Colette devoted to these gentle little animals: “Poum”, “La Toutouque”, “La petite chienne à vendre” and “Toby-chien parle”. Music by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) and Claude Debussy (1862-1918), interpreted by violinist Donnie Deacon and pianist Jean Desmarais, will be played in counterpoint to the texts of Sidonie Gabrielle Colette.

Sidonie Gabrielle Colette, known as Colette (1873-1954)

The writings of Colette were long confused with the life of this author. As we know, Colette led a tumultuous emotional and indeed scandalous sex life in conjunction with a protean career as critic, reporter, columnist, mime, actress, dramatic author, dialogue writer, librettist, script writer, writer and… owner of a boutique selling beauty products. This seductive biographical hodgepodge immediately created a series of filters that have tinted — discoloured, flattened — the writings of Colette. Fifty years after the author’s death, Colette’s work now appears for what it is: a prodigious search for being by a writer whose supple fluidity holds to life’s minor asperities with absolute fidelity and displays an intellectual honesty founded on genuine humility before the buzzing, blooming antheap of a world and a constant search for accurate expression that eschews flashy effects. From the Claudine series to the meditations of Fanal bleu, not forgetting her Dialogue de bêtes, Les Vrilles de la vigne, Chéri, La Naissance du jour, La Chatte or Gigi, she unceasingly searched for herself through a style of writing that looked for what is beyond reason and the will, whether it was the mystery of feelings or of animal consciousness.

Colette au pays des bêtes
Texts: Colette / Music: Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy
Interpretation: Maxine Turcotte / Staging: Alain Doom
Violin: Donnie Deacon / Piano: Jean Desmarais

Tuesday, March 11 and Wednesday, March 12, 2006, at 12:00 noon in the NAC’s Fourth Stage
Tickets: $15.50 (adults), $8.75 (students)
On sale at the NAC Box Office, through Ticketmaster at (613) 755-1111 or online at www.nac-cna.ca.

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Information:
Guy Warin
Communications and Media Relations officer
(613) 947-7000, ext. 759
gwarin@nac-cna.ca