“My life is like an automatic canvas,” says Suzanne Meloche, in The woman who runs awaythe show adapted from the best-selling novel by her granddaughter, Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette. The artist and poet (Flashing Auroras) thus evokes its existence over almost a century. Free and chaotic, luminous and fragile, courageous, anarchic and… self-destructive.
After the death of her grandmother, Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette wrote this book to try to understand this woman she never knew and who abandoned her responsibilities along with her young children. The novel also exposes the lives of artists during the Great Darkness, a stifling time when creation in Quebec was done to the detriment of the values of the heart and kindness. You can’t make an artistic revolution without breaking ties…
An object of beauty
Under the superb direction of Alexia Bürger, with the fluid score by Sarah Berthiaume, this show intensely condenses the story of Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette. To make it a choral work, carried by a collective of nineteen performers (including two young actresses who play alternately) and brilliant designers.
PHOTO YVES RENAUD, PROVIDED BY TNM
The scenography, designed by Simon Guilbault, is of rare beauty.
From the outset, let us underline the quality of the scenography created by Simon Guilbault. It forms an immense white canvas, with large staircases where the choir unfolds, in an impeccable setting. The splendid lighting by Martin Labrecque is deposited, like patches of bright colors, on this immaculate white decor. If we add the very beautiful costumes by Julie Charland (in particular the cape of plush toys in which François takes refuge), it gives a lively and colorful picture. A scenic object of rare beauty!
In the role of the narrator and alter ego of the novelist, Catherine De Léan shows assurance and reserve, as a good observer who seeks to recreate the life of her grandmother. Without judging her. Suzanne Meloche is played by five performers, from childhood to old age, including three great theater actresses: Marie-France Lambert, who has a memorable scene, Louise Laprade and Eveline Gélinas.
Close to the Automatistes in her twenties, the poet was the first wife of the painter Marcel Barbeau, interpreted with expressionist gestures by the actor-dancer Jacques Poulin-Denis. We come across other major figures of this movement, including Borduas, defended by the always fair Alex Bergeron and a firecracker Claude Gauvreau, embodied by the marvelous Olivia Palacci. Let us also mention the very touching performance of Daniel Parent in the role of the sick son, François Barbeau.
PHOTO YVES RENAUD, PROVIDED BY TNM
Zoé Tremblay-Bianco (center) plays Suzanne Meloche in her twenties.
A century in one piece
This theatrical adaptation manages to skim over a rich era in an act of less than 90 minutes, without any downtime. We have few reservations, except for the use of a dancer when Alex Bergeron delivers an excerpt from the manifesto Overall refusal. It is a text already very loaded with meaning, no need to add gestures. The delivery of the choir can seem a little cold, declaimed, at times… But nothing to diminish this very successful and touching show.
PHOTO YVES RENAUD, PROVIDED BY TNM
Alex Bergeron, on the right, delivers excerpts from Global refusal.
On the evening of the premiere, Thursday, seeing Alexia Bürger, Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette and Sarah Berthiaume take to the stage for the final bow, we could only rejoice with them. A century after the birth of the heroine of The woman who runs awayhere are three accomplished women/mothers/artists who have given birth to a splendid production, an extraordinary theatrical object. Like the novel, the play comes to soothe the wounds and suffering of our grandmothers. And of all those nonconformist women who, in the middle of the last century, paid dearly for the price of their freedom.
Check out the part page
The woman who runs away
By Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette
Directed by: Alexia Bürger. With Catherine De Léan, Marie-France Lambert, Eveline Gélinas and 16 other performers. At the TNM, until October 11