Quebecer Dany Boudreault and Frenchman of Iranian origin Gurshad Shaheman share an eight-year friendship. For In your footstepsa play presented at the FTA, the two theater men decided to embark on a surprising treasure hunt by visiting each other’s territories to better reconstruct them.
Thus, Gurshad Shaheman retraced the thread of Dany Boudreault’s life by visiting the places that formed him – from Montreal to Lac-Saint-Jean – and by meeting those who marked his path: parents, friends, lovers.
Dany Boudreault did the same. Although he was unable to travel to Tehran for diplomatic reasons, his steps still took him to Turkey, on the border of Iran. He also lingered in France, where several members of Gurshad Shaheman’s family and friends live.
Each on their side of the Atlantic, the two playwrights wrote the life of the other based on the delicate material thus collected, laying bare two stories made of intimidation, rejection and violence of all kinds.
To this rich artistic approach, the two playwrights chose to add a daring staging. Here, the two stories are told simultaneously. The public can move from one to the other by choosing the frame that interests them on headphones provided at the entrance.
The idea may have been beautiful on paper, but it presents the audience with a heartbreaking choice. It is impossible to follow the two stories simultaneously, which unfold quickly, each following a distinct path. Flickering from one story to another giving only scattered snippets to grasp, many spectators have chosen to stick to a single narrative thread. This is also the choice that the author of these lines made.
PHOTO SARAH LATULIPPE, PROVIDED BY FTA
Quebec actor, poet, director and playwright Dany Boudreault
For almost the entire two hours of the show, I listened to Gurshad Shaheman recount the tumultuous and poignant life of Dany Boudreault. His childhood in a rural environment, the beatings at school, his disappointed first loves. All magnified by the warm voice of the child from Tehran, who has written a text of great humanity with a few touches of humor.
To add a layer of fog to this strange play of mirrors, the piece is deployed almost entirely behind a thin screen placed upstage. If we perceive the bodies of the actors and the gestures they make, it is difficult to distinguish their facial features. The facial expressions being thus blurred, a distance is established between the performers and us. It’s inevitable. And it’s a little frustrating. We realize this when the screen finally falls, at the very end of the show…
We then see these two exceptional performers in all that they have to offer and we regret not having been able to access the full range of their talent.
What is true for the acting is also true for the dramaturgy. The always poetic words of Dany Boudreault escaped us. And we would have wanted to taste everything about this show with its fascinating premise and – from what we could hear – terribly moving subject matter.
The room In your footsteps is presented at the Center du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui until 1er June.
Check out the part’s page at the FTA
In your footsteps
Text and direction by Gurshad Shaheman
and Dany Boudreault
Today’s Theater CenterUntil 1er June