“You searched for the words, as if the words could have been among all the things that can be found in the waters. »
– Norman Chaurette, Fragments of a farewell letter read by geologists
Elegance: in his prose as in his life. The legendary discretion of Normand Chaurette and his customary humility did not prevent his work from shining on the stages of Quebec and the world. The Théâtre de Quat’Sous had a special relationship with the work of one of our finest writers: it was on our boards that his first theatrical text was created, Dream about a hospital night.
Written in 1975 and intended first for radio, the text will have to wait five years before being staged by Gérard Poirier at the Quat’Sous. Its premiere date, January 9, 1980, will have symbolic value: the previous decade which has just ended was dominated by collective creations, political theater and agit-prop. Aside from Tremblay, “one-penned” authors are not fashionable, fiction has taken the edge (well, well, a little air of deja vu) and poetic universes voluntarily detached from the sociopolitical context are not in the odor of holiness.
That is to say that the discovery of the writing of Normand Chaurette marks our dramaturgy with a white stone, inaugurating a flourishing decade where the universes of a new generation of authors will be deployed who will not be afraid or literature or imagination.
Eight years later, Fragments of a farewell letter read by a geologist was created at Quat’Sous in a staging by Michel Forgues. It is a success… of esteem. One evening, thirteen spectators attend the show. Never mind ! Normand Chaurette will not stop writing. It will take the creation of queens at the Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui in 1991, in a staging by André Brassard, so that the wind turns – including an entry in the Comédie-Française repertoire in 1997 – and that we finally recognize at its height the immense talent of Normand Chaurette. Thanks to the scenic companionship of director Denis Marleau, his work will shine in Europe: Indiana Crossing and The little Köchel will perform at the Festival d’Avignon, among others.
Many of us mourn him today. Normand Chaurette was a monument of integrity, audacity and “sweet radicalism”, to use an oxymoron dear to his adored Shakespeare: without firing a shot, without useless pranks, the writer let his work dig its own furrow, in which many young writers have signed up. He represented for many of us, including the author of these lines, an ideal, that of a writer devoted to his art, to his research, to words and their ghosts.
Our most moved and united thoughts go out to his loved ones, to those who saw in him, from the start, the seeds of a work to come — the Leméac family, René-Daniel Dubois, Michel Forgues, who left not long ago; to its directors, including Michèle Magny, Lorraine Pintal, Yves Desgagnés and Alice Ronfard; finally, a very special thought to his great artistic encounter which took place more than twenty-five years ago, the one with Denis Marleau and his collaborators at UBU.
We still have a great work, which has not finished inspiring us.