The crossing of the century | The Odyssey of Alice Ronfard

On August 27, Théâtre Espace Libre will present the reading of The crossing of the century, the adaptation of the dramatic and romantic work of Michel Tremblay. This colossal project, directed by Alice Ronfard, will also be the subject of a six-episode podcast series. A piece of Quebec history seen through the characters of “our” Balzac.

Luc Boulanger
The Press

For two years, Michel Tremblay’s books have not left the worktable of Alice Ronfard’s studio. They are all carefully annotated, highlighted and stuffed with “post-its”. Because she is working, with passion and relentlessness, on an adaptation of Tremblay’s work that she would like to produce in a 12-hour show at the theater… if she finds funding.

In the meantime, the director is concentrating on reading and the podcast series with 18 performers, including Dominique Quesnel, Emmanuel Schwartz, Alex Bergeron, Violette Chauveau, Francis Ducharme, Évelyne Rompré, Rachel Graton, Monique Spaziani, Dany Boudreault… After this 12-hour (!) reading-event at Espace Libre, Ronfard will look at the podcast, with the same cast, later in the fall.

First started by André Brassard, who wanted to make a collage around the character of Édouard (The Duchess), Alice Ronfard’s adaptation turned into a literary odyssey in the world of Tremblay. From his novels and plays. A gargantuan project whose “mission” is to draw “the contours of an entire people’s desire for emancipation”, to define “a mythology of modern Quebec” based on the work of Tremblay. Nothing less !

“Like Balzac and Dumas with theFrench historyTremblay retraces the history of Quebec in the last century,” explains Mr.^me Ronfer. For her adaptation, she isolated four pivotal characters from the work of the playwright and novelist: Victoire, Albertine, Thérèse and Nana. Four women at the center of a family exiled from the countryside to the city, marked by fate, the curse, like the lineage of the Atrides among the Greeks.

Michel Tremblay talks about Quebec and women, but the writer is also, according to Ronfard, a precursor of gender fluidity, sexual diversity… long before LGBTQ+ Pride.

Themes that the 80-year-old author himself did not suspect were part of his work, he is asked: “Yes, certainly, answers Ronfard. However, I assume that my adaptation is political and feminist. I would like to allow a younger and more diverse audience, who does not know Tremblay, to discover his incredible genius, the grandeur of his prose, the beauty of his world. »

Between theater and literature

The crossing of the century intercalates two modes of writing (theatre and literature). They will meet, contaminate each other and dialogue with each other. For this, Ronfard drew on several books and plays: Albertine in five stages, The previous past, Marcel chased by dogs, Tomorrow morning, Montreal is waiting for me, Sainte-Carmenthem Chronicles, The Desrosiers Diaspora, among others. What she notes in the writer is “his ability to move from fantasy to hyperrealism, from allegory to tragedy, from gravity to comedy”.

“In this sense, Tremblay joins my father [Jean-Pierre Ronfard]. My father always found something ridiculous in tragedy, Ronfard said. “The tragedy is fine for five minutes, he said, but after that you have to laugh anyway”. »

Tremblay, the humanist

Alice Ronfard believes that the recognition of the other is an entity in its own right in the work. “Basically, Tremblay is a humanist. Humanism is reaching out to others, not judging them, trying to understand them in terms of their sexuality, gender, identity… And Tremblay is curious about everything that is human. »

After 30 months of immersion, can she tell us, among her many characters, which one best represents the son of The fat woman ? “Michel Tremblay is Marcel. Because Marcel embodies his relationship to creation, to music, to the imagination, to fantasy. In An object of beautyin chapter The last judgement, Marcel takes himself for the greatest painter of the Quattrocento: Leonardo da Vinci, whom he renames Marcello del Plato Monte-Royale! »

The bard of the Plateau is at once our Balzac, our Molière and our da Vinci.

Twice Tremblay at the cinema

sisters-in-law

Michel Tremblay’s work is also at the heart of two Quebec feature film projects. In the spring of 2023, director René Richard Cyr will shoot the film adaptation of the show sisters-in-law which he created with Daniel Bélanger in 2010 at the Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui.

Led by producer Denise Robert, the film will be a musical drama that will take liberties with the stage version. It featured Guylaine Tremblay, Maude Guérin and Marie-Thérèse Fortin. “I feel privileged to be able to produce this film,” said Denise Robert when her financing by SODEC was announced. “This is a project that I have been dreaming about for a very long time. In Quebec, we make dramas, comedies, horror films and animation, but we’ve never really made musicals. » The release date of sisters-in-law will be announced later.

Through the front door

For his part, director and screenwriter Émile Gaudreault is working on a feature film project based on the work of Michel Tremblay. The director of Liar and From father to cop co-wrote the screenplay with Éric K. Boulianne. The working title of the film, still in the writing stage, is Through the front door. A reference to the famous line by Lise Paquette in The sisters-in-law : « I came into the world by the back door, but therefore left me by the front door! »