The Woman Who Flees at the TNM | From Paper to Boards

The novel The woman who runs away caused a stir when it was released in 2015. In it, Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette tells the extraordinary story of her grandmother, the poet and painter Suzanne Meloche. The story of this woman, who abandoned her children to better embrace her creative impulses, is now making its way to the TNM. Four women – both artists and mothers – are behind this highly anticipated show.

Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, author

“The genesis of this project is my daughter growing in my belly.”

Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette has often said it. It was during her third pregnancy, while she was expecting her first daughter, that the impulse to write about her grandmother appeared. A true ghost in the author’s life, Suzanne Meloche was an elusive woman, who abandoned at a young age the two children she had with the painter and signatory of Global refusal Marcel Barbeau.

“I realized that my daughter lacked a maternal lineage. The first hand my grandmother extended to me came after her death, when she asked us in her will to empty her apartment. During her lifetime, she never wanted me to meet her. So I decided to go to her.”

However, the undertaking was emotionally risky. How can one understand without judging such a radical gesture as rejecting one’s children? A gesture that, above all, had an enormous impact on the author’s mother and uncle.

Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette had to delve into documents, photos and correspondence found at Suzanne’s house to weave a life for her.

To tell the story of her “invented grandmother,” the author chose artistic freedom rather than a historical realism that would be documentary-like. “I was more concerned with human accuracy. It’s all fictionalized.”

Carte blanche

Almost 10 years after the release of her novel, Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette is preparing to see “with a little vertigo” her family of flesh and blood come to life on the TNM stage. Even more, she is preparing to hear her words flow from the mouth of the one who embodies her alter ego, her great friend Catherine De Léan.

Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette could have taken charge of the theatrical adaptation of her novel, or even of the staging. With her partner Émile Proulx-Cloutier, she has signed shows of great power (including Not Lost | Scenic Documentaries).

“From the beginning of the project, it was clear to me that I wanted to entrust the adaptation to Sarah [Berthiaume] and the staging at Alexia [Bürger]. They are women, mothers and artists who can understand this dilemma: to leave or to stay. To fulfill oneself personally or to give oneself for others. I gave them carte blanche.

She describes her role as that of a “guardian of the emotional core of writing.” “It was important to me that the language presented on stage be the language of the novel. And also that the form embrace the content. To be in line with the momentum of the automatists, we decided together not to obey conventions…”

Sarah Berthiaume, adapter

Pregnant for the first time, nauseous and stuck in a tent from which she hardly ever left… Sarah Berthiaume remembers well the state she was in when she read The woman who runs away for the first time. “This page-turner bowled me over. This creative woman, her arms full of children, who finds herself unable to practice her art… I felt dizzy, I admit!” says the woman who has worn the hats of playwright, performer and director in her career.

“My challenge was to make choices, because the novel is full of symbols and clues. My job was to unravel that and keep the same yarn to create simpler patterns. All while keeping Suzanne at the center of the story.”

Choral form

Another challenge: that of the form of the novel written in the first person and marked by the strong presence of its narrator. “With Anaïs and Alexia, we especially did not want to flatten the story by transforming it into dialogue scenes. Having Borduas and Gauvreau discuss in an everyday tone would have had nothing to do with the project.”

The choral form quickly became established, echoing the automatist movement that Marcel Barbeau had joined in his youth. “We are not in the formal, realistic line that follows a psychological curve. This multiplied form is the opposite of figurative art.” Thus, it was decided that the role of Suzanne would not be played by a single performer, but by five.

For Sarah Berthiaume, adapting a novel that has sold thousands of copies for the stage is a dizzying experience. “It’s a privilege, but it comes with an immense responsibility. This work has become part of the private lives of many people; it has resonated strongly and intimately. However, I know that the theatrical experience will not be the same as that of the novel.”

Alexia Bürger, director

Olympic. This is the word Alexia Bürger uses to describe the work carried out by the team of creators and performers to transpose onto the stage The woman who runs away.

It must be said that the project is titanic: a choral piece performed by 18 performers present almost all the time on stage! However, the entire cast (including two children who will play alternately) only had five weeks to put together this major show.

“It’s very condensed,” admits the director, who wanted to offer this play a white setting like a blank canvas that would be painted before the spectators’ eyes. “I imagined the show as a painting. All these people on stage can become astonishing landscapes. These bodies that express themselves on the canvas also sometimes represent the continuity of Suzanne’s inner states.”

A bit like the signatories of Global refusal who came from various disciplines, Alexia Bürger wanted to integrate dancers into her cast of actors. “Their presence and their way of considering live art allow us to take the spontaneous impulse of gesture further. It’s very rich.”

Dancers or actors, the choral form of the piece requires great precision and listening from everyone, she says. And this is particularly true for Catherine De Léan, who in a way embodies the narrator of the novel. “She is like the conductor of this global symphony.”

Catherine De Léan, interpreter

Catherine De Léan and Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette were 13 when they became friends in high school. It was therefore natural that the actress – who has participated in around twenty public readings of the novel – would play the narrator on the TNM stage. Contrary to the woman who flees, she is the woman who searches.

“I know all the people in the novel. For me, this story was very much rooted in reality, but with the play, I have to let go and enter into fiction. During public readings, I imagined images. Now, I embody them in a space, with other bodies.”

However, this role requires its interpreter to perform a fine balancing act between emotion and rhythm. “You have to be very precise. The text is very close to a musical score. Sometimes, you have to breathe in unison!”

This will be Catherine De Léan’s first appearance on the TNM stage. And the actress is delighted. “It’s by seeing The Locandiera It was here that I wanted to do theater. Thirty years later, here I am! It will certainly be a defining moment in my career.”

For her, it remains to be seen whether the reactions of the TNM audience will be as strong as those that punctuated the public readings presented in the two years following the novel’s release. “The further the reading went on, the more I felt the room becoming charged with emotion. I heard people cry. It was a thrill to listen to.”

The woman who runs awaypresented at the TNM, from September 10 to October 5

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