The boulevard
With the director Frederic BélangerJean-François Sénéchal adapts the children’s novel that he published with Leméac in 2016. The hero, Christopher, who has a mild intellectual disability, is abandoned by his mother when he is eighteen. Continuing to hope that the author of his days will reappear, the boy played by Alexandre Lagueux learns about life by wandering on a suburban boulevard where he meets colorful individuals. Claude Despins, Louise Cardinal, Félix-Antoine Duval and Nathalie Mallette are part of the cast.
At the Rideau Vert theater from October 2 to November 2
Fires
Twenty years after its creation, Wajdi Mouawad’s tragedy, where horror is great, but never more powerful than filiation and love, is entitled to a first rereading on a Quebec stage. To play the role of Nawal, at 14 as well as at 65, the sisters Elkahna and Ines Talbi called on Dominique Pétin. As for Jeanne and Simon, Nawal’s twins, those who embark on a painful quest for their origins, it is Sabrina Bégin Tejeda and Neil Élias who embody them. We can expect a show where the words snap and the music pulses.
At the Duceppe theater from October 30 to November 30, then on tour
Snow in Abidjan
In 2008, Iannicko N’Doua visited his home country, Côte d’Ivoire, for the first time. There, a father, brothers and sisters awaited him, people he knew little or nothing about. Since then, the actor has been working on writing his first play. Addressing filiation and memory, the score would be both realistic and abstract, documentary and dreamlike. Under the benevolent gaze of an old accomplice, Marc Beaupréwith whom he notably created Caligula [Remix]N’Doua shares the stage with Hamadoun Kassogué, a theater man from Mali.
At the Centre du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui, from November 4 to 23
Yahndawa’: What we are
From the beginning of the 20th centurye century to today, from Ludger Sarenhes Bastien, the patriarch, to Agnolien, the great-great-great-grandson, Marie-Josée Bastien, descendant of a Huron-Wendat lineage, revisits the history of her family, of men and women whose destinies collide and respond to each other. At the heart of this identity story that is said to be driven by resilience and pride, where reality rubs shoulders with invention, we find Yahndawa’, the majestic river. Veronika Makdissi-Warren signs the staging of this show which will first be presented in Quebec by the Trident.
At the Stables, from December 5 to 14
Kukum
Published by Libre Expression in 2019, Michel Jean’s novel recounts the life of the Innu of Pekuakami (Lake Saint-Jean) at the beginning of the 20th century.e century. It is about their nomadic daily life, their thirst for freedom, their symbiosis with nature, but also the atrocious way in which they were forcibly settled and dispossessed of their territory. The adaptation by Laure Morali, in collaboration with Joséphine Bacon, is staged by Emilie Monnet. Almanda Fortier and Thomas Siméon, the author’s great-grandparents, are played by Léane Labrèche-Dor and Étienne Thibeault.
At the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, from November 12 to December 7
Iphigenia
The Portuguese Tiago Rodrigues, current director of the Avignon Festival, adapted Euripides’ play in 2015. His feminist reinterpretation of the tragedy is fascinating in that its heroine is freed from fate: a woman who refuses to conform to the choices of men, who exercises her free will and decides to die so that the wind rises, in full knowledge of the facts. It is not surprising that the director Isabelle Leblanc wanted to take on such material. While Alice Moreault plays Iphigenia, Catherine Allard and Étienne Pilon are Clytemnestra and Agamemnon.
At the Denise-Pelletier theater, from November 12 to December 7
To make death
In a show that is halfway between autofiction and documentary, where the music of Mykalle Bielinski plays a key role, the author Krystel Descary and the director Marie-Eve Milot imagine a space where death could be treated like birth, with gentleness and attention. Inspired by their experiences and observations regarding mourning, the creators expose with humor and tenderness innovative ways of thinking when it comes to taming our finality or that of our loved ones, for example the practice of rituals and the use of psychedelics.
At Espace Go, from November 12 to December 8
Anatomy of a suicide
After Until we diea transdisciplinary and immersive show, Brigitte Poupart is involved in the staging of a play by Alice Birch created in London in 2017, a text in which three generations of women from the same family are trapped in a cycle of depression and suicide. Deployed in a space designed by Ryoichi Kurokawa and Cédric Delorme-Bouchard, this choral work on women’s mental health brings together Sarianne Cormier, Amélie Dallaire, Marilyn Castonguay, Marie Bernier, Madeleine Sarr and Marine Johnson.
At Usine C, from November 26 to December 7
My little filly
After the hilarious and corrosive Miss Agnespresented at the Prospero, then at the Rideau vert, the director Louis-Karl Tremblay rubs shoulders with a piece by Paco Bezera created in Madrid in 2016. Bruno Marcil and Évelyne Rompré are the parents of Louis, 10 years old, victim of violence and intimidation by some students at his school. The child’s backpack, decorated with a fabulous filly, is said to be the source of the problem. Although they have contradictory points of view on the situation, the father and mother will have to agree on the measures to be taken.
At La Licorne, from December 3 to 21
Zero driving
While pursuing for 20 years a highly coherent approach thanks to which mysterious objects of beauty and meaning follow one another, Jeremiah Niel often appears where you least expect it. After a novel by Édouard Louis and a play by Pierre Perrault, the director undertakes to revisit a film by the Frenchman Jean Vigo released in 1933. Flanked by Sabri Attalah and Gabriel-Antoine Roy, the two animators, Macha Limonchik is the director of a holiday camp whose children one day stop submitting to the absurd and humiliating rules of adults. The creator at the head of the Pétrus company promises “a hymn to life, to chaos and to emancipatory joy”.
At Espace Libre, from December 3 to 21