In a world increasingly reduced to a packet of data, the 12e Jamais Lu Québec festival offers a dramaturgical escape from this statistical boxing. This year, the event aims, under the leadership of its new artistic director, to plant its flag in the “invisible” which makes it impossible to “can” the world into accounting columns.
Le Jamais Lu, a true showcase open to new dramaturgy, brings together this year nine readings articulated around the same quest: “summoning the invisible”, this essential hidden from view that Saint-Exupéry and his Little Prince knew was only perceptible through the heart.
“We are very strongly exposed to a language, particularly in the media, which is mathematical, economic, statistical,” analyzes Marie-Ève Lussier-Gariépy, former assistant artistic director of Jamais Lu, now artistic director. We talk a lot about our world and humans with numbers, but that is not enough. It’s impossible to tell your story only with that; we also have to relate to matters that escape us. It can also do us good to touch the sacred in these sometimes very dark times. »
Hot tears and “little butt film”
The chosen texts had to make their way through around fifty proposals before reaching the program. The new director, keen to add her color to this first Jamais Lu under her leadership, has brought together works that offer escape through fiction.
“The authors deploy universes which go a little outside the realistic framework, that is to say which allow themselves to exploit the absurd or, in certain cases, a dose of magical realism. We are taking off from reality, rejoices Marie-Ève Lussier-Gariépy. It’s something that was close to my heart because theater has the chance, for me, to offer a stage that allows us to be extra-real. »
The program offers two full readings. That, first of all, of I Am Fake News: a story of survival by Catherine D’Anjou, a quest for meaning in vaudeville clothes featuring a couple in their thirties who notice, while watching a “little butt film”, that the latter is set in their own living room.
The second integral belongs to the Resolution, by Thomas Boudreault-Côté. The play recounts a break-in consultation: Rémi, in his early thirties, breaks into Gilbert’s office without the latter’s knowledge to obtain an emergency session, on the evening of December 31, with this “jaded psychologist”. The work, in the eyes of Marie-Ève Lussier-Gariépy, addresses “with humor and great sensitivity” serious and seriously current problems: mental health, class struggle, loneliness.
A work for young and old, presented with the youth theater Les Gros Becs, will address divorce and family dislocation through the eyes of a little girl. Below the waterline, by Cécile Mouvet, “throws you to the ground”, promises the artistic director, who does not hide having “cried tears” when reading it.
Preliminaries at the end
Friday will belong to the particle accelerator, an “always very festive” evening devoted to five texts distilled in doses of appetizer: a 20-minute extract per work, delivered by a squad of around ten performers.
“The role of Jamais Lu is to allow us to really get to the heart of the dramaturgy outside of financial constraints, with only lecterns and a few accessories,” believes the artistic director. It allows the texts to meet the public for the first time and the presence of creative incubators, as the festival proves necessary in times when culture is going through a difficult period which is approaching a crisis. »
The closing evening will showcase the brand of the new management. Preliminaries: a writing of the invisible will reverse the spark that normally sets creation on fire. Based on the “wildest dreams” of two designers and a designer, a brigade of authors will put together a scene. A way, for Marie-Ève Lussier-Gariépy, to highlight the design work, essential to the show, but often in the shadow of the spotlight.
“I really want us to be able to conceive of dramaturgy as something broader than what relates to words. For me, the light, the sound, the music, the scenography, the costumes also participate in the theater text. If we took the same score, the same words, but in two different lights, we would probably be looking at two completely distinct works. »
Note that a new dramaturgy fair, inspired by its literary counterpart, will allow the public to meet ten authors, including Isabelle Hubert, at the origin of the theatrical adaptation of Plouffe, and Charles Fournier, author of Foremantwice crowned with prizes for best text.
Capital Affordability Concern
In this economic context where inflation strips pockets before taking many by the throat, Jamais Lu has decided to do a favor to the public by lowering its prices. The audience will be able to purchase a $25 ticket to hear the two full readings. Individually, each costs $18.
“It’s essential, to stay alive and close to people, to make yourself accessible,” believes Marie-Ève Lussier-Gariépy. It is certainly not up to spectators to pay out of their own pockets to keep this art accessible. The Jamais Lu’s speeches contribute to the creation of a collective good and it should be possible for everyone to hear them, regardless of their budget or their difficulties. I think we should instead be more supported by governments. That, concludes the artistic director, you can full write it in capital letters. I firmly believe in it. »