The views guy, the theater girl and the TV transgender working together couldn’t have imagined an intro to the sadly more apt subject: theater man Philippe Racine arrived late for the appointment for the interview on the place of diversity in Quebec culture and society because he was stopped by the police! Poet, your papers!
“I was driving slowly on rue Sainte-Catherine in the West. The police were driving slowly behind me and, at one point: “Wow”, the siren sounded,” said Mr. Racine, still a little dazed, standing in the entrance hall of the Center du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui ( CTD’A), half an hour after the incident. “The police asked me for my papers. They explained to me that I was driving a car registered in the name of a woman. I know it: it’s Valérie’s car, my lover! »
The artist of Haitian origin also knows how to do in this kind of circumstances. He kept his calm, remained courteous and accepted his sad fate, as recommended by instructions known to all Afro-Quebecers.
“You need restraint. You have to stay nice, continued the actor and director born in Rouyn, strangely without aggressiveness or resentment. The last time I got checked, Valerie was in the car. She is white and she did not hesitate to ask the police: “But why are you doing this?” They explained that there is a lot of auto theft. Aye, we have a mess! Again they let me go. They saw how absurd it was. »
Absurd or revolting? The problem of ethnic or racial profiling by the police is well documented. What must be called discrimination vis-à-vis people of cultural diversity has also been highlighted several times in publishing, in the cinema, on TV, on the boards. The screens and stages in Quebec lack color, and the “strain” uniformity is even more blatant in the leading roles. The same observation is made about the information media elsewhere, “abysmally homogeneous and white”, according to a post published a few days ago in The thirtythe magazine for journalists.
Movement
Only, there is positive movement, and the evidence is beginning to accumulate, at least in the theater.
“There are clearly things that are moving,” said Mr. Racine, once seated in the lobby of the CTD’A. We occupy more and more places. There is more and more risk taking. Major players in the industry are starting to set an example, to hire, to raise awareness. »
My name is Muhammad Aliby Dieudonne Niangouna, co-directed by Philippe Racine and Tatiana Zinga Botao at the Quat’Sous, has just brought to life, on the small stage on the avenue des Pins, seven men proudly wearing their black identity like a flag. Mr. Racine also wrote and performed Which is a Basquiat at CTD’A.
mom this week ended its very useful life on stage at Duceppe. The play written by Nathalie Doummar revolves around twelve characters of women from different generations, all from Egypt.
“I don’t think this project as it is would have been possible ten years ago,” says Ms.me Doummar, encountered near Hand, a few hours before a performance of her play in which she plays. Myself, I initially thought that I could not find twelve actresses of Arab origin for the roles. It’s done and it works. Yes, there is an opening, but we are only at the beginning of the transformation. In TV series, the people in the foreground are still almost all white. »
The concrete effect of this atypical representation can easily be measured in the Quat’sous as in Duceppe. “People from my community came to the theater for the first time,” says Nathalie Doummar, citing the concrete case of the mother, originally from Lebanon, of comedian Mariana Mazza. “The room diversified the room, but it was also filled with native Quebecers. »
There is no miracle. The movement is explained by social or economic pressure. Do we really need to recall the Kanata and SLAV cases?
The director Racine gives the example of the dubbing of foreign films. Three white Quebec actors (Jean-Luc Montigny, Alain Zouvi and Pierre Auger) lent their voices in French to the African-American Denzel Washington. At the request of Hollywood producers, roughly since Black Panther (2018), the dubbing now more respects the origin of the actors on the screen.
Structures
Mr. Racine co-founded the Théâtre de la Sentinelle in 2017 with Tatiana Zinga Botao and Lyndz Dantiste, further organizational proof that things are moving here too. The company focuses on relaying texts by black authors.
“We too have stories to tell, which are milestones in the history of Québec,” says Mr. Racine. We go through our identities for now. We say how we live here, now. We’ll see where it will take us. »
For him, a new founding wave could be rising. After the nationalist creations of the 1960s and 1970s, after the aesthetic and internationalist thrust of the post-referendum years; the theater could well be taking root in all the diversity of Quebec society.
“It’s a theater that calls for multicultural representation,” says Lyndz Dantiste, who plays in My name is Muhammad Ali. The beauty of Quebec culture comes from its diversity and we have come to tell the different stories. I even make the connection with the new way of speaking in Montreal. A language that mixes several cultural sources, several backgrounds, must also be heard. I often say it: we need the Michel Tremblay of this language. »
Theater analysts have made the connection between mom and The sisters-in-law. Without supporting this too heavy honor, Nathalie Doummar understands why, since she also gives voice to female characters in a tragicomedy.
“We knew it would be fun to do, but we didn’t know how much we were going to reach the public, says Mme Doummar. What’s trippy is that people identify with that story, and not just Egyptian people. Native Quebecers tell me that they recognized themselves in this story. We of diversity are used to identifying with narratives from Western culture. There, the effect is reversed. »
She adds that, for her as for the other actresses in her play, seeing and hearing each other was a revelation from the first rehearsals. “We were all from Arab countries. A complicity was established from the first moments. We all bear the drama of our exiled, uprooted parents. We know what it is to feel different, to have an inadequate feeling, to be in deficit in relation to the host culture. The women on stage had an instant understanding of the issues. »
Philippe Racine in turn returns to this dynamic between the hall and the stage, the theater and society, culture and the world. “Me, I’m touched when I hear Chekhov or Ibsen,” he said. The universality of theater makes it possible to meet different people and to be touched. The foundation of the theatrical approach is to make people meet the other and to learn about this person. »
Poets, to your papers!