The Carrefour international de théâtre goes fishing for secrets with its Night linea work that will give voice to the snippets of nightlife shared by the night owls, insomniacs and other awake people of Quebec who come alive when others let themselves be lulled to sleep.
For a month and for a few more weeks, the Carrefour answering machine will be collecting testimonies from Quebec’s nocturnal wildlife at 581 741-5300, between midnight and 6 a.m. These chosen confidences will serve as a soundtrack for the show Night linean auditory dive into the hidden side of the day, that is, this world that shakes in the light of the moon.
“I didn’t suspect that there was all this life teeming at night in Quebec,” says with astonishment the artist Maureen Roberge, responsible for piecing together the anonymous voice messages to make a collective work.
At the end of the beep, the night owls confide what keeps them awake when everyone, or almost everyone, is dreaming. These fragments of the night paint “a portrait of these solitudes that meet” in the wee hours, from the tipsy partygoer to the nurse at the end of the shift, from the new parents on enforced standby to the long-haul truckers.
These collected voices weave the web of a “little-known universe” which lives “a little in opposition to the world”, adds Maureen Roberge.
“We are very open about confidences. It’s sometimes very light and very funny, but there is also a great humanity that emerges from this approach,” adds the conductor. Hubbub as you leave the bars or confessions whispered on the pillow, the experience “lifts the veil,” adds the artist, “on the dark sides of the night and the people who inhabit it.”
Maureen Roberge was able to hear the dedication of an original, up in the middle of the night to supervise the fermentation of his homemade yogurt. She was also able to collect the “fable” told in spite of himself by a exhausted worker who drifted away from his own fatigue to the point of delivering an anthological piece of “accidental poetry” to the voicemail.
“It’s art that gives voice to the community and that comes to life outside artistic circles, insider circles,” explains the artist and actress enthusiastically. It also transforms Quebec City into a theater: when someone tells us what they feel while walking at the foot of the ramparts in the middle of the night, it changes our own view of the capital. »
The work is inspired by Nightline, an idea born from the insomnia of Australian documentary theater artist Roslyn Oades. The latter collaborates with Carrefour to ensure the Quebec adaptation of its concept.
The performance will be intimate, each time inviting an audience limited to around forty people. Like the telephone operators of yesteryear who connected and disconnected lines by hand, members of the public will have the opportunity to pick up the telephone receivers of their choice to listen to the secrets hidden at the end of the line.
“We will find ourselves in the shoes of a night telephone operator,” assures the artist. Less spectacle than auditory and immersive experience, Night line will reveal its secrets from June 5 to 8 at the Périscope theater, as part of the Carrefour international de théâtre.