Between entertainment and social mission, documentary theater triumphs in Quebec

Can we explain artificial intelligence, tell the story of mass feminicide or the problem surrounding GMOs… on stage? This is the bet made by Quebec documentary theater which continues to develop and attract crowds.

As with a documentary film, it all begins with a long investigation which gives voice to each protagonist, from different points of view… It then remains for the actors to find out how to stage this material. “Bringing reality on stage is a challenge” especially since “we tackle complex subjects”, tells AFP Marie-Joanne Boucher, actress who co-edited Polytechnic Project, one of the last pieces of its kind currently performed in Montreal.

This returns to the massacre of 14 women at Polytechnique, an engineering school in the Quebec metropolis, on December 6, 1989. A first mass feminicide which deeply marked the country. The two main actors in this documentary play recount the tragedy, but also encourage the public to ask questions with them: what can be done to prevent other shootings of this magnitude?

In turn, the viewer is confronted with the words of a survivor, of one of the first police officers on site, that of a firearms enthusiast, then with the speech of masculinists who continue years later to justify in line the attack or worship the killer. “We say to the spectator: come to the theater, you will be entertained, but you will also leave with a better overview of today’s society,” adds Annabel Soutar, co-founder of the Porte Parole company, a pioneer of its kind in the province.

Over the past two decades, his company has produced around twenty plays on themes as diverse as hydroelectricity, GMOs and health care. Since then, many other companies have followed suit. “There is a social mission, but no compromise on the spectacle side”, adds Annabel Soutar.

Laboratory for innovative staging

Appearing in the 1920s in Germany then in Russia, documentary theater was initially used to disseminate communist ideology. It then developed throughout the world and abandoned propaganda to concentrate on political or social events. In Canada, it was more in the English-speaking part of the country that it became known in the 1970s, but it is now in Quebec that it is most developed.

Today, in the province, one in four plays belongs to the genre, according to Hervé Guay, an academic who co-directed The interpretation of reality: documentary theaters in Quebec, a work on this theme. Among the reasons for this success, among others, the “aesthetic variety” and the complicity developed with the public. It is also a way “to open up about a lot of subjects, sometimes surprising”, says Émilie Cabouat-Peyrache, resident of Montreal and theater lover. “And above all, what I like is that we discover original and innovative staging techniques,” she adds.

Open dialog

“We are at the apotheosis of documentary theater because Quebec society is ripe to be connected to social issues,” believes Justin Laramée. The latter mounted Run of milk, show which deals with the disappearance of small Quebec farms, the milk quota system and the mental health of farmers. He is pleased to have been able to play in front of rooms in which there were urban people as well as farmers. “It opened up dialogue and we need it right now”, he explains.

Offer a “diving into a universe” unknown, it was also the objective of Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette and Émile Proulx-Cloutier for their show Not lost. “We live in a society with a lot of noise, a lot of positions taken, but not necessarily a lot of depth, and I think we need a return to authenticity,” explains the author.

This “stage documentary” which is a reflection on identity, memory around jig, a type of dance, is based on long sound recordings punctuated by danced moments. “We wanted the viewer to be confused,” explains Émile Proulx-Cloutier. “And it works, we have a lot of feedback from spectators who say they are upset.”