This short series focuses on the treatment of homelessness through culture. First case: how productions represent the homeless.
In England, opera and homelessness have long gone hand in hand, for better, for worse and what they inspire.
A bad example. When he was housing minister in John Major’s Conservative government, George Samuel Knatchbull Young, Baron Cookham, said in a BBC interview that the homeless were “the people you pass over on the way out of the opera house.” “. Very shocking indeed !
A good move now. In response to this insulting joke, Matthew Peacock, a young music critic, launched the Streetwise Opera company, which allows homeless people to follow training and create operatic shows under the direction of experienced artists. Between April 2022 and March 2023, the organization provided training to 347 people, staged nine micro-operas and offered 44 recitals by itinerant singers. We obviously think of the Choir of Accueil Bonneau which traveled around the world between 1996 and 2003 and enabled 54 homeless people to get off the streets.
The inspiration for the scene from the street continues. Still in England, John Berry has just announced the start of work on the opera The Galloping Cure addressing the opioid crisis. “Most new commissioned operas do not reflect the zeitgeist of contemporary society,” lamented Mr. Berry, co-creator of the theatrical megasuccess, at the end of May. War Horse to justify a contrario the choice of the new heavy subject.
A black portion of our zeitgeist is indeed concentrated there, in the overconsumption of opioids which sows death and fills the streets with zombies, especially on the North American continent. In 25 years, approximately 700,000 Americans have died of overdoses, more than in all the wars the United States fought in the 20th century.e century.
In Canada, between January 2016 and September 2023, nearly 42,500 deaths could be linked to intoxication by fentanyl or oxycodone. Opioids accounted for 61% of hospitalizations for poisoning among people experiencing homelessness and for 40% of cases among people with housing.
Homeless man with microphone
Giving voice to the survivors themselves remains quite rare in cultural productions. Manon Barbeau did it by filming street youth in the documentary The shadow army (1999). Pierre Anthian, founder of the Choir of Accueil Bonneau, turned fiction Recycling (2008) with itinerants and professional actors.
The podcast Stories to sleep outside, produced last year by Babel Films and available on the Télé-Québec platform, aims even broader. The excellent production has unfortunately gone a little under the radar.
Excerpts from the two dinners organized at the magazine The Itinerary are interspersed with interviews and reports which end up shedding light on fundamental aspects of our society, the obsession with work, overconsumption, class relations, the private capture of public space, the failures of the welfare state, the effects of psychologically and mentally distressing contemporary life, mental illness, the very perverse effects of capitalism.
Lyne, one of the participants in the discussions, says she sees homelessness like a plant, each leaf representing a situation, each stem a cause. “In my case, homelessness has come in all forms,” she says. I’ve seen homelessness because of consumption, I’ve seen it because of mental health, I’ve seen it because of love too. Romantic itinerancy, yes. I found a friend just so I wouldn’t be on the street, I put up with it as long as I could endure it and, after that, I fell back onto the street. »
The humanist comedian Jo Cormier directs the meetings, produces and scripts this audio work without equivalent here. He constantly intervenes in the presentation with timely comments.
“The homeless are part of society and they have a different vision of our society: not everyone is made to fit the mold,” he said in an interview. Homelessness is often stigmatized in the media. We are often harsh with these people in our performance society. So I wanted to deconstruct the discourse on this reality with people who know what they are talking about and show that itinerant is a status that can be temporary. »
From the first minutes of the first episode entitled “Falling into the Street”, there is talk of this media treatment of the homeless. “It doesn’t change much,” says the host, who asks his guests what they think about it themselves. “We are not present enough,” replies Lyne.
Yves, a computer scientist who became homeless for a time because of his drug use, likes detective series, and District 31 especially. “And he also felt sad when Poupou died,” notes Jo Cormier, referring to one of the beloved characters in the Radio-Canada series.
“We see itinerant people in the series, especially junkies,” says Yves. Except that, in this population, there are not only junkies. There are many. There are also a lot of mental health issues. And, in between, there is a sort of Venn diagram where those who have both problems find themselves, who self-medicate for their disorders. »