Stage echoes | Olivia Palacci: from dunce to gifted

Olivia Palacci has become an increasingly familiar face on stage and on screen. However, the actress signs these days at Quat’sous her fourth staging, with the play A day. Meeting with a woman for whom work rhymes with pleasure.

Stephanie Morin
The Press

The theater entered Olivia Palacci’s life like a lifeline. “In elementary school, I was a dunce. At Stanislas College in Outremont, my 6-year-old teacher^e, Mr. Poulhazan, felt that the theater could hook me up at school. He made me recite in front of the class Contemplations by Victor Hugo. I got my first 10/10. The management then asked me to join the college theater troupe. A seed was sown that year and eventually bore fruit. She transformed the dunce of yesteryear into a gifted student who took not one, but three courses in drama.

At the Conservatoire de Montréal and the Conservatoire national de Paris, she learned the ropes of her profession as an actress before continuing her studies – in directing this time – at the Conservatoire de Québec.

“I don’t come from an artistic family. No way. For a long time I believed that actors were recruited from the street! »

A chosen family

For this assumed “gang girl”, the theater has become a second family. “I don’t have a big family, only my mother. My friends are the family I have chosen. For me, work should be fun. I like to laugh and I often say that we are not on Earth to be pissed off! »

For A day, she surrounded herself with “pearls”: friends she already had and others who became friends through work. In the text written by Gabrielle Chapdelaine, Renaud Lacelle-Bourdon, Nathalie Claude, Rose-Anne Déry and André-Luc Tessier embody four people who live the daily routine; they will have to spend 24 hours together to try to break with this banality.

“To imagine this behind closed doors, I was inspired by the films Inside Out and Inside John Malkovich’s Head. The four characters know everything about each other’s lives. And since I’m a fan of reality TV, I put them in a game show context, in the near future. To win, they must go through this new kind of therapy together for 24 hours. Also, the characters are aware that there is an audience, but they don’t see it. »

As the text is a creation, Olivia Palacci decided to keep it in its entirety, without changing a single word. “My staging is based on the unsaid, lighting, sound, video images. »

Multiple projects

Since the end of her studies, in 2013, the actress has multiplied the projects. In the theater, she shone in Lovers, Oil, The Aeneid. On television, we saw her in Guys, Black beast, Lies. She is participating this season in two television projects: Hotel (VAT), but above all Bombswhich will be presented at Séries plus next February or March.

“There are four of us who have been working on this for years: Debbie Lynch-White, Julie de Lafrenière, Sarah Desjeunes Rico and me. This is the story of four fat women who end up in rehab. The texts are signed Kim Lizotte. All four of us are always called for the same role at the auditions: that of the plump and sympathetic woman! Each time, only one is chosen. At this rate, we were never going to work together! We decided to offer ourselves roles that we dreamed of doing. And prove at the same time that being fat is not a personality! »

The one who describes her personality as “colorful and a little offbeat” adds in the process: “I am sometimes asked if my weight restricts me in the roles that I am offered. Yes, it is more restrictive than positive. I would dream one day that someone offers me a role that would require a major physical transformation. I would dream that people see beyond my weight, that they come looking for me for something else. For my part, I would see how far I would be ready to go for a role. Otherwise, I would like to play a fallen queen in a big period costume, a queen who would be as comic as tragic. »

Pacific Palisades

This text by Guillaume Corbeil finds its starting point in an unusual (true) news item: the discovery of the body of Jeffrey Lash, found dead in his car, in 2015, in the Pacific Pallisades district of Los Angeles. The 60-year-old man, in whom the police found an arsenal of 1,200 weapons, had convinced his relatives that he was a secret agent, but also that he was half-man, half-extraterrestrial. An investigation is being conducted to shed light on this case. Evelyne de la Chenelière plays all the characters in a production by Florent Siaud.

Jean Siag, The Press

From October 18 to November 5 at the Center du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui.

One Hundred More

This new creation signed by dancers and choreographers Justine A. Chambers (Vancouver) and Laurie Young (Berlin) is under the sign of resistance. Inspired by the current socio-political climate, in particular the movement Black Lives Matterbut also by testing The Minor Gesture (Erin Manning), One Hundred More presents a whole range of small gestures related to resistance, highlighting the shared fascination of the two artists for the political, social and physical ramifications of the gestures we make on a daily basis. Alone on stage in a sober and minimalist scenography, the two women take center stage to create their own physical archive of resistance.

Iris Gagnon-Paradise, The Press

From October 19 to 22 at the Agora de la danse.

One. Two. Three.

Created in 2014, this trilogy by Mani Soleymanlou – which opened the season at the National Arts Center in Ottawa – brilliantly addresses the theme of identity and exile. First from his own journey, which led him from Tehran to Montreal (A), then in a duet with actor Emmanuel Schwartz (Of them), and finally in a large-scale play (rewritten this year), which brings together nearly forty actors and non-actors from diverse backgrounds (Three). A show-event lasting just over four hours, it’s true, but worth its weight in gold.

Jean Siag, The Press

From October 20 to 23 at Duceppe. Then, from October 27 to 29 at the Trident de Québec.

Because leaving… it’s my job

Marie-Louise Leblanc created this benefit show for the benefit of Ukrainians who have found refuge in Canada (more precisely at the Congress of Ukrainian Canadians). Actresses Sophie Faucher, Marina Orsini and Danielle Proulx will read excerpts from three war stories: intimate wars, French reporter Sara Daniel; Leaving to tell, of the former great reporter of The Press Michele Ouimet; Promise me you’ll come back alive by author Danielle Laurin, who interviews war journalist Anne Nivat, among others. Thomas Postigo will also perform the piece Smile by Charlie Chaplin.

Jean Siag, The Press

Monday, October 24 at 8 p.m. at Casa D’Italia. Reservation required by email.

Duet in pieces

In this new creation by author and actress Marilyn Perreault (British Now, Bus line), six actors embody a couple (Philippe and Clémentine) at different ages. A love story with ups and downs, written (in words and in movement) by eight creators from the Francophonie (from Quebec, France and Belgium), including Annie Ranger and Alix Dufresne. In total, 16 “fragments” of life have been created, where the very notion of the couple is contested. Each evening, viewers will see seven of these fragments, chosen at random.

Jean Siag, The Press

From October 25 to November 12 At the stables.

The wolf

Created in March 2020 in formula 5 to 7, at the edge of the pandemic, this piece by Nathalie Doummar (mom, Love is a dumpling, Sisi) is a camera centered on an aging couple, Donald and Solange (Luc Senay and Maude Guérin). After 30 years of living together, it’s time for them to settle their accounts, especially for Donald, who suffers from Alzheimer’s and who wants to free his speech before losing his memory… The play directed by Chloé Robichaud was enhanced with an epilogue. The opportunity to see or see another play by the young playwright, which is the second play scheduled at Duceppe this season.

Jean Siag, The Press

From October 26 to 30 at Duceppe.