On a beautiful June morning, the ball diamond in Walter-Stewart Park is the scene of a sequence of the play Foul ball. Passersby stop, intrigued, seduced by this funny imaginary baseball game bathed in music and humor. A taste of this original project which will be shown this summer, free of charge, in the stadiums of a dozen boroughs of the former city of the Expos, from Anjou to Saint-Laurent.
This piece of baseball is an old dream for its creator, Jean-Philippe Lehoux, who has always been a big fan of this game which, in addition to being a very accessible sporting activity, offers a real “summer ritual” of meeting. It was while watching a match between Montrealers of Cuban origin (“There are a lot of Latino leagues here, of an exceptional level”), with the festive atmosphere reigning in the stands, that the author of How I became a tourist and of The schoolgirl from Tokyo had the idea of Foul ball. A show written in collaboration with Charles Dauphinais, Ariana Pirela Sánchez — who also jointly sign the staging — and Yohayna Hernández.
This “very Pan American” sport has a rich history, according to Lehoux, who has read extensively on the subject. The playwright was thus surprised to learn that French-speaking Quebecers had adopted baseball at the end of the 19th century.e century. “It was a lot of priests who had taken over this sport, reported from American colleges, to get young people to play in schools. “A choice that was made” a lot in reaction against British sports, which were very elitist: polo, curling… These are expensive sports, requiring equipment that did not make sense. For baseball, you need a field — it’s very pastoral — a stick, a ball and you can play”. As for Latin America, “Cuban revolutionaries” have spread the practice there to the rest of the territory.
Originally from Venezuela, where baseball, national sport, is very important, Ariana Pirela Sánchez testifies to its affordable, popular character. “In many villages and very poor neighborhoods, it is also a hope for people to be able to improve their quality of life. SO, [les Vénézuéliens] have been playing since they were little. And not with real sticks. Just with a broomstick and corks [au lieu de balles]. We agree that if you manage to hit a cork with that, then you’re good! [rires] »
The last game
The story was inspired by the true story of a group that fought to keep the Jeanne-Mance Park baseball field. Foul ball unfolds the final game of a team of amateurs who must give up their beloved pastime because the playground will become a dog park. A colorful band, bringing together players from very diverse cultures and with very varied sporting skills. There is, for example, the anxious “Baloune”, who always lets the bullets escape; the mysterious thrower, with stylized motions, who never speaks… And next to the field, seated at a kiosk as colorful as the character, the announcer (the tasty Dominique Quesnel) who describes the action, as she done for 37 years.
For Jean-Philippe Lehoux, the bulk of the writing – “and it was very long” – consisted in describing the course of a real match, with each of the sporting actions. And through baseball, “which has its codes, its strong moments, the characters reveal themselves, in different ways”. But in a “restrained way, because people don’t know each other that much when they play baseball together. Often — I know this from having played in leagues myself — we don’t talk about anything other than the match. It is a community assembled around a passion”.
And in order to hold the public’s volatile attention in an outdoor context, the co-director worked a lot on the physical dimension: “We choreograph space and bodies through sporting actions. Sometimes the movements are very realistic, sometimes they are stylized. But there are also times when it really becomes dancing. Without revealing certain punches, let’s say that the piece includes several short collective choreographies.
Cohabitation
The cohabitation between the different Montreal communities is at the heart of the show, carried by 15 interpreters of various languages and origins, who play certain lines in Spanish or English. “It is not said literally in the story, but we see it, exposes Ariana Pirela Sánchez. The meeting takes place through sport. I think you can feel it a lot in the room. And there are very touching moments in the text, where we feel the weight of certain experiences, like the story of a character who has immigrated, what he experienced before arriving here. But he is integrated into the team. There is no rejection. It is a possible space to coexist all together. A cohabitation between the different personalities that make up a baseball team. »
Whether Foul ball is a comedy, its quartet of creators wanted us to have access to the intimacy and fragility of certain players. “Together, we had something to say,” explains Jean-Philippe Lehoux. It’s not for nothing that we got together to think about subjects that were close to our hearts. Like the community after exile: this acceptance is important. “To” find a family “, as Ariana Pirela Sánchez says. The playwright agrees: “It’s not a new idea, but baseball is based on a pretty nice metaphor: we come home. We start from home plate [ce qu’on appelle le marbre en français], we go around and come back. For us, it was obviously an extremely strong image, compared to the course of certain characters. So everyone keeps a link with their house. »
Between the funny or action scenes, therefore, sometimes arises what they call “a moment of suspension”, where time stops and where we leave the match to make way for an interior monologue, or even a dance solo. .
Co-produced by the Maisons de la culture, and criss-crossing several neighborhoods which will each orchestrate their own community celebration around the play, Foul ball also has the potential advantage of reaching an audience that doesn’t usually go to the theatre. For Jean-Philippe Lehoux, it was therefore important to present the piece also “in parks further away from a certain cultural offer in the center”.
Sport can therefore serve as a key to discovering theatre. This is what the author hopes. “I would be very happy for people to come and see a show baseball and then get sucked into the story. Then we are suddenly in a moment of poetry, which has nothing to do with sport, where we switch a little more towards art. That’s what we want, this marriage. »