She is 31 years old, but seems to have just left adolescence. Children call her affectionately “Passe-Carreau!” when they pass her in the street. Despite her youthful airs, it is Gabrielle Fontaine who was in mind for the creators of the musical play The giantess to play Rose Ouellette – aka La Poune.
“I was surprised,” admits the main person concerned. “When Rose Ouellette died, I was very young. For me, La Poune was an old woman with a sailor’s hat and a smoker’s voice. I didn’t even know her real name. I learned about her journey and, today, it’s an honour for me to play her on stage. She broke several glass ceilings.”
Jade Bruneau, director of The giantess and artistic director of the Théâtre de l’Oeil Ouvert, had already worked twice alongside Gabrielle Fontaine, notably in the musical comedy Grease. “I couldn’t have chosen better. Gabrielle has all the ingredients needed to embody Rose Ouellette. She has poise and lightness at the same time. La Poune made people laugh, but she was also the first woman in the country to direct two theatres. It takes a natural poetry to tell this story. Gabrielle has this freshness… For me, she embodies spring.”
Rose Ouellette also had this insatiable and childish side. Born in 1903 in the heart of the Faubourg à m’lasse – above a tavern located on the corner of Papineau and Ontario – she had to work in a shoe factory at the age of 13 to help her family make ends meet.
“She played the accordion to entertain the other workers,” said Gabrielle Fontaine.
She was a unifier. I saw a parallel with the love of shows that I already had as a child. I too began my artistic career as a teenager, in youth series. But Rose was more of a clown, more of a rebel than me!
Gabrielle Fontaine on Rose Ouellette
Daughter of singer Martin Fontaine, who impersonated Elvis on stages around the world, and singer-chorister Marie-Claude Lapointe, Gabrielle Fontaine spent her childhood behind the scenes of theaters. “I learned from my parents that an artistic career is a roller coaster ride and that you have to appreciate each project as it passes.”
For now, Gabrielle Fontaine’s career is at the top of the merry-go-round. Besides The giantesswhich will keep her busy this summer, but also in 2025, she plays Passe-Carreau in the popular youth series Master keyIs there any resemblance between the vaudeville performer with the dirty jokes and this character who gets little ones moving?
“There are many. Both of them have stayed connected to their inner child. They have a sparkle in their eye. They are luminous characters, who stay close to their audience. They also use their bodies to make people laugh or to entertain. And they both have a little tomboy side!”
Be inspired without imitating
With her sparkling eyes and her frank smile, Gabrielle Fontaine is undoubtedly cut from the same cloth. But there is more, she says. “Like Rose Ouellette, I am someone who goes for it and who has never been afraid of ridicule. La Poune was so judged by the elite of her time! She didn’t care. It was natural for her and I was like that too, as a child.”
The pressure was on when Gabrielle Fontaine (successfully) stepped into Claire Pimparé’s shoes in Master key. “I naively auditioned for this role like for all the others,” says the actress. “It was after that the fear came! But I told myself that I would do my best, that I would put my whole heart into it. Knowing that you can never please everyone.”
In The giantessGabrielle Fontaine has another delicate mission to deal with: embodying an artist who has left her mark on the history of the Quebec scene. “It’s a big challenge. Rose Ouellette is a strong woman, who charges forward, who leads. I had to find this side of my personality, which is naturally softer. Plus, we see her age on stage…”
The giantess in rehearsal
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PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, THE PRESS
Jade Bruneau and Gabrielle Fontaine, in rehearsal
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PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, THE PRESS
A sung scene, to music composed by Audrey Thériault
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PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, THE PRESS
In The giantessGabrielle Fontaine is on stage for the entire duration of the show.
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The musical play is inspired more by Rose’s life than by La Poune’s public persona. Don’t expect a collage of sketches! Burlesque will be present, but in small touches.
This is not imitation at all, it is fiction. Geneviève Beaudet’s text tells the story of Rose Ouellette by imagining what we don’t necessarily know: her childhood, her adolescence, her artistic beginnings in a period of great economic precariousness.
Jade Bruneau, director of The giantess and artistic director of the Open Eye Theater
The action takes place from the 1910s to the 1940s; we move from one era to another by a magic tram…”, reveals Jade Bruneau.
Still, some facts are very real, like the romantic relationship between Rose Ouellette and Gertrude Bellerive, aka Gigi (played by Jade Bruneau). “We didn’t force La Poune to come out,” says the director. “A lot of people knew it and we simply decided to stop hiding it. But it’s not the heart of the show.”
She concludes: “Telling the story of Rose Ouellette is a pretext to talk about the place of women in Quebec, their importance in the theatre. The giantess is a committed and feminist show.
At the Desjardins Cultural Centre in Joliette from July 11 to August 10, then at Carré 150 in Victoriaville from August 15 to 31. A tour will follow. It will stop at the Théâtre Maisonneuve at Place des Arts on June 5, 2025.
Visit the show website