A sign of the times, Premier Acte punctuates its season with two plays on the same, topical theme of sexual assault.
As of April 19, we will be able to see Disgrace, with a text by Nadia Girard Eddahia. Auréliane Macé will share, with her colleagues Aube Forest-Dion and Marie Tan, the staging of the text by Rachel Graton The night of 4 to 5, which will follow in May. If they both address this violence, which has been very present for many years in the media, the two plays have nevertheless chosen opposite points of view: that of the victim and that of the aggressor.
Inspired by the conditions of detention of host Jian Ghomeshi, who, following complaints from women for sexual assault, was able to await his trial at his mother’s house – who had paid his bail by vouching for him -, the text by Girard Eddahia questions the figure of this Canadian idol who passed, overnight, “on the side of such a violent, disturbing scandal”.
Directed by Gabriel Cloutier Tremblay, the show will therefore explore this violence of a sexual nature which, in the media, is often presented as foreign gestures, those of others – easy, therefore, to put at a distance. The text, however, delves into an ambiguous part of this violence, the author evoking the “trouble” felt when one finds oneself linked to people responsible for such abuse: “How do we live it in intimacy, the fact of loving someone someone who committed these acts? How do we manage this? »
“Basically, that’s what piqued my curiosity: this camera with this guy who was a star who we could to be extremely proud, but who, overnight, went from the other side”, continues the author, whose ideation of this project dates back to 2014. It was before #MeToo and well before the wave of denunciations in the Quebec artistic community, at that time when the hashtag arose #UnreportedAggression. “It took me a long time to start writing. I said to myself: “I want to see this piece…” But I didn’t think I would have to write it myself. »
In mirror, The night of 4 to 5 will present the side of the victim. From the text by Rachel Graton, which recounts a journey of resilience in a few scenes, Auréliane Macé and the team at the Théâtre de l’Impie wanted to produce a performative show that will bet on not “creating a fictional space”, that in the aim of making violence appear openly. “It’s just…so real!” That’s just the reality that we don’t usually see: what happens when you go for a medical-legal examination in the hospital or in an organization, the violence that exists, all these repeated micro-aggressions within of the judicial process…”
Betting on the fact that many spectators will have had similar experiences about the piece, the show will focus on how a body recovers from such violence. “We really wanted to show that the bodies of our performers, what they experience on stage, are their real bodies, it’s their real person, it’s their real exposed nudity. […] We don’t try to move with a great dramatic tirade: we really base ourselves on what a body goes through, on the way it evolves. About how we get up, in the end. This is perhaps the big question of the show. »
“It’s important for us to use our public voice as artists to include it in a larger social movement. It’s our vehicle for change, our small contribution to creating a fairer world — because that’s what we know how to do. »
The theater in the city
Because the theater, in the eyes of both creators, continues to be a privileged place to question, here, a social reality that the last decade has only made more significant. “There is a kind of warmth in the theatre, it’s a collective experience”, mentions Girard Eddahia, who also evokes the traces that the public can keep at the end of a show. “I think that to change a culture, you have to mark the imagination…”
Making the delicate bet of presenting the aggressor and his entourage, this one hopes to resonate “the violence that there is in us”. “These movements go a lot through social networks, a space where you are basically alone in front of your screen. Whereas in the theatre, we will all be sitting for a long time and together, with a question, in a situation, and this allows things to resonate differently, to plunge more into complexity. »
Auréliane Macé agrees with her, recalling the unifying nature of the performance. “And the fact of talking about it and feeling less alone, this sorority that is taking place, it allows us to say that we have a support system behind us, that we are not alone. »
In this sense, she recalls this phrase often taken up by feminist discourse that “shame must change sides”, a point on which work remains to be done, and on which the theater has its say. “Perhaps people are thinking, in recent years, that we see a lot of women writing about ‘women’s issues’, in quotes, sexual assault, etc. »
However, the designer sees here rather a return of the pendulum. “Because…for how many years have we just shown men in plays put on by men?” These stories of aggression, rape, the fact that we edit them as women, that we write them as women, that allows us to change the perspective that has been dominant for many years. And just that, it’s worth it, I think. »