A dormant volcano is currently waking up on theater stages in Quebec. This volcano spits the fire of anger, caused by centuries of contempt, of injustice towards marginalized people and groups. However, this volcano also emits a magma of love and freedom.
Posted at 8:30 a.m.
Marguerite: fire, the new play by multidisciplinary artist and Aboriginal actress Émilie Monnet, is an eloquent example. This production evokes the forgotten drama of Marguerite Duplessis, an Aboriginal slave who lived in New France, shortly before the Conquest (a very discreet plaque bears her name in an alley of Old Montreal).
Marguerite Duplessis was the first slave from here to fight for her freedom, starting a legal process in 1740. A lawsuit that the woman will lose in the court of the men. She will immediately be sent to a plantation in Martinique, where we will lose track of her, because “collective memory is short”, says Émilie Monnet.
The erased ancestors
In Marguerite: fire, Monnet is on stage with Aïcha Bastien N’Diaye and Madeleine Sarr. These three performers form a close-knit trio. Three “racialized” women who speak with the same voice, the same suffering. They punctuate their plural identities, both in their words and in their gestures. Their story makes a link between the past and the current violence suffered by vulnerable women, sex trafficking, rape. A tragic destiny that continues beyond slavery in America.
PHOTO YANICK MACDONALD, PROVIDED BY ESPACE GO
Formally, this show is a unique, dreamlike object, a bit esoteric, at the crossroads of theatre, performance, sound creation and video.
If the text is a bit short (the story could have been more substantial), we feel an ardent desire to change the course of the long river of History. A river that flows endlessly repeating the horror, the war. In a scene that will be repeated, the trio names a list of surnames of prominent French-Canadian families. The Bourassas, Taschereaus, Parizeaus, Couillards, Legaults, Gouins, Sauvés, etc. Like a litany, the actresses bring these names to life viscerally. As if to illustrate that these Quebecers are on the right side of history and power; while the surnames of First Nations ancestors, among others, have fallen into memory holes.
Formally, this show is a unique, dreamlike object, a bit esoteric, at the crossroads of theatre, performance, sound creation (Frédéric Auger) and video (Caroline Monnet). The decor by Max Otto Fauteux and the lighting by Julie Basse are splendid! Singing and dancing occupy a good place in this short and dense show.
Note, Émilie Monnet’s creation is part of a triad, with a podcast series, Marguerite: the crossing, and a sound walk through Old Montreal, Marguerite: the stone which will be held from May 7 to June 6. It will be followed by meetings with the artist, in co-production with the Center du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui.
Marguerite: fire
Text: Emilie Monnet
Co-directed by the author and Angélique Willkie
At Espace Go, until April 2