Last Saturday, playwright David Fennario died at the age of 76. Author of the piece Balconvillea flagship work from 1979 set in the bilingual working-class community of Pointe-Saint-Charles, in 2003 he was a candidate for the Union of Progressive Forces, and in 2007 for Québec Solidaire, before illness confined him to a wheelchair. Or, dixit the author in the documentary Fennario: The Good Fight“he doesn’t [pensait] Not less “.
Born David Wiper in 1947 in Pointe-Saint-Charles, he took the artist name David Fennario, inspired by a Bob Dylan song, Pretty Peggy-O : “I’ve been around this whole country / But I never yet found Fennario…”
Long before the recognition obtained thanks to the success of Balconville, David Fennario stood out. In 1972, his novel in diary form Without parachute had reported it. The author evokes the idol Dylan, the film Midnight Cowboy (Macadam Cowboy)… and above all, Verdun, where he resided most of his life.
In 1975, his play On the Job, about the revolt of three department store employees forced by their employer to work on Christmas Eve, was well received. In The duty from 1er February of that year, we can read from the pen of Adrien Gruslin: “This first effort by Fennario demonstrates a real talent for dramatic writing […] On the Job is the denouncing observation of a reality as harsh as it is daily. The play, entirely Brechtian, is a very honorable success. »
The consecration and the prizes came four years later. Created at the Centaur Theater, the play Balconville contained one third of dialogue in French and two thirds in English: it was Canada’s first bilingual play. “Montreal more real than real! », exclaims in The duty Jacques Larue-Langlois.
Subsequently, David Fennario was Centaur’s first playwright in residence.
Marx and Nelligan
This is also the process of creation in this theater of a subsequent play, Motherhousewhich we follow in the captivating documentary Fennario: The Good Fightby Martin Duckworth (the author was the subject of two other documentaries: David Fennario’s Banana Boots And Fennario: His World On Stage).
At the time, we wrote in these pages about the film: “David Fennario is a character. An eminently endearing character. And who has things to say. Lots of things. On solidarity, on social justice, on the past which explains the present […] David Fennario still defines himself as a socialist, as evidenced by, among other things, a satirical poster merging Marx and Brando, and a second by Émile Nelligan on which the master of the room has pinned a red square. »
Further on, another passage from the film is mentioned, this one shedding light on the past and the assumed convictions of David Fennario. “Archival video showing David Fennario receiving an award for his play Gargoyles proves indicative of the playwright’s desire to challenge preconceived notions of history. We see him, then in full health, denouncing the one taught at school. “It’s the Westmount version of history, from top to bottom. What I write is the Pointe-Saint-Charles version of history, from bottom to top,” he explains, concluding the demonstration with a middle finger.
An activist, David Fennario did not hesitate to picket in front of Place des Arts where his own play was being performed, in support of the ushers then on strike. Among other famous anecdotes.
The final word to the playwright who, in Martin Duckworth’s documentary, concludes: “Living for yourself leads to a dead end. It is by living for others that we become a complete being. »