Michel Rabagliati’s work continues to inspire creators. After the film adaptation of Paul in Quebechere is the Trident of Quebec getting ready to bring the album to the stage Paul at home. The Press talks about it with the actress and playwright Anne-Marie Olivier, who wrote the theatrical text.
Launched in fall 2019, Paul at home had left its mark, perhaps even more than the other albums in the series. It is that this 9e Paul staged his author, Michel Rabagliati, not in memories of his youth, but in the present. Paul is therefore an accomplished cartoonist, but he is in a bad way.
Our man, who has just passed the milestone of fifty, lives alone with his dog Biscuit after a painful separation. His mother is sick and his only daughter has gone to live in London. In his house in Ahuntsic, everything is falling apart. His apple tree is sick, his swimming pool is contaminated, his garden is abandoned…
PHOTO SARAH MONGEAU-BIRKETT, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Michel Rabagliati in the garden of his house in Ahuntsic.
PHOTO FROM THE ALBUM PAUL AT HOME
Michel Rabagliati’s garden, as it appears in the comic strip.
In short, things are not going well for Paul, especially since he has sleep apnea, while fighting a tooth infection and chronic pain when he draws.
Obviously, this incursion into Rabagliati’s private life is told with humor and above all a lot of tenderness by the cartoonist. So that when the artistic director of the Trident asked Anne-Marie Olivier to do the theatrical adaptation, the playwright, actress and director immediately put her foot in the stirrup.
“It’s like a gift,” says Anne-Marie Olivier, who has been a fan from the very beginning of this “multi-generational” series written “with finesse and humor,” which has “entered everyone’s home.”
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Playwright, actress and director Anne-Marie Olivier.
Michel really integrated the family into his work. He talks about Quebec like the great playwrights, whether it’s Chekhov or Tremblay, he is at the heart of human complexity, with lightness, depth and humor, so I was a bit of a guardian of his work.
Anne-Marie Olivier, playwright
Michel Rabagliati participated in each stage of the theatrical adaptation, explains Anne-Marie Olivier.
“Everything that’s new or that’s been cut has been approved by Michel,” she assures, “so it’s a bit of an invisible adaptation. For me, it was out of the question that I do anything, and that people don’t recognize Paul, because he’s huge in people’s lives. So fans of the comic strip will recognize what we’ve removed and added, and those who don’t know him will discover it.”
Many inspirations
Theatrical adaptations of comic books are not common. There have been Whitehorseby Samuel Cantin, which was very successful last season at Duceppe (in a production by Simon Lacroix), but there are not many other recent examples. “Maybe we are behind or it is simply due to ignorance,” suggests the playwright.
Anne-Marie Olivier’s greatest challenge was to create a coherent text on the theme of mourning based on Michel Rabagliati’s graphic story.
There are a lot of short scenes, and that, at some point, is difficult because we need the story to move forward. We had to find ways for us to cling to Paul in his misadventures. And despite the darker side of the story, there is a certain lightness. It is a play that pulls us upwards.
Anne-Marie Olivier, playwright
Lorraine Côté is directing. We are promised a production “that borrows the codes of shadow theater, object theater and live cinema.”
In particular, we will be able to see the character of Paul – who will be played by Hugues Frenette – working. His drawings will be projected in real time, specifies Anne-Marie Olivier. “There will be drawings that come from the album, but Michel has also made new drawings specifically for the show.”
Anne-Marie Olivier, who directed the Trident for nearly 10 years, has been working on writing and directing projects for the past two years, while teaching at the Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Québec. Her play will also be available again Mauritius at the Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui, in which she plays with a different spectator from one evening to the next.
“We have to create,” she says, “because the world we live in is burning, so we have to make art and works that are balms, like Michel’s. For me, it’s not important if they are big productions, I want to get closer to the artisans to be as close as possible to the initial desire. I am always dazzled by the power of reality, of what people have to say.”
From September 25 to October 19 at the Trident in Quebec
Check out the show page