After an acclaimed creation in Quebec, director Alexandre Fecteau takes over the theatrical transposition of the novel at Duceppe Never wipe tears without gloves.
Fecteau, born in 1981, the year AIDS was “born,” had long been convinced that one day he would create a show about the HIV epidemic. A tragedy that haunted him from a young age. And it’s while reading Never wipe away tears without gloves that he found the work to achieve it.
The moving novel by Swede Jonas Gardell – Quebec Booksellers Prize in 2018 – chronicles the impact of the virus on a group of gay friends in Stockholm in the 1980s. But its scope is universal. The entire West experienced the epidemic “in a fairly similar way”, explains Alexandre Fecteau. “And pretty much everywhere, political powers have tried to keep it away, not get involved with it, for all kinds of reasons. So much so that we did not take action as quickly as we could have, which fueled hatred and created a difficult social context. But it brought, on the other hand, the communities [touchées] to show solidarity, to support each other. »
Both intimate and social, romantic and political, this choral work is “strong because it functions on several levels,” he says. On an emotional level, we become attached to these characters, that we will cry. And she names the cowardice, the responsibilities and how a certain way of living religion and a certain bigotry have come to complicate things.”
And for the director, the stage transposition allows for a collective experience rather than receiving this trying story alone. “Seeing these characters come to life in front of us makes them even more concrete and vibrant. Because that’s a bit of the mechanics of the novel: we make friends, the better to lose them. But it feels like it’s worth it. These characters give us a lesson in solidarity and humanity. And friendship, at its strongest. »
The story adapted by Véronique Côté follows the community formed by seven friends. And above all the couple that is born between Rasmus, who fled his village to finally be himself, and Benjamin, a Jehovah’s Witness who must choose between his two identities. These very young men begin their love lives without knowing that an infection threatens in the shadows.
A tribute to the generation who had to deal with the outbreak of this deadly illness, even though the gay community had just won certain rights (in Sweden, “in particular, homosexuality had been removed from the list of mental illnesses” ). “The virus not only spoils the party, it leads to setbacks, because, for those who observed these advances with suspicion, it is as if it proves them right. »
Memorial
Why is it important today to revive this memory? Alexandre Fecteau’s answer to this question changed during the performances at the Trident last March. “I realized, while listening to the spectators at intermission, that we needed to talk about this again. And it goes beyond the boundaries of the LGBTQ community. The context of the epidemic was difficult for everyone. » For everyone who was becoming an adult in the late 1980s or early next decade. “It created a climate where we associated love and death, in a quite disturbing way. I think it was so difficult for so many people that, when we stopped dying of AIDS, we turned the page extremely quickly, we didn’t digest, analyze all of that. People who are the age of the characters have very little told this story to their children. And there are beings who are forgotten in there, which I find terrible: the innocent victims, yes, of a virus, but also of what was not done to help them. »
It is also the concept of memorial which underlies the stage space, designed with scenographer Ariane Sauvé. Jonas Gardell wrote his novel in the early 2010s, therefore with a retrospective look at the period depicted. The decor is inspired in particular by the Parc de l’Espoir, dedicated to Quebec victims of HIV/AIDS, in the Village, where The duty had chosen to photograph the director.
Enveloped by the performance of a quartet playing a Mendelssohn concerto on stage, romantic music which “transports” the audience, the show takes the form of a requiem. But it is also a celebration of “friendship, community, solidarity, in pleasure, but especially in adversity”.
Olivier Arteau, Maxime Beauregard-Martin, Gabriel Cloutier Tremblay, Véronique Côté, Laurent Fecteau-Nadeau, Hugues Frenette, Érika Gagnon, Jonathan Gagnon, Israel Gamache, Samuel La Rochelle, Carla Mezquita Honhon, Maxime Robin carry the piece.
“I was lucky because most of the performers were already very attached to the novel,” notes Fecteau. They presented themselves in very committed auditions. »
Anger
Featuring information on gay rights and the management of the epidemic, Never wipe away tears without gloves also echoes the author’s anger, which Fecteau shares. “We look at this, 25 years later, and we say to ourselves: we were right to be revolted. Because it’s revolting to see how things weren’t taken care of. I find that the COVID-19 pandemic gives reason to this anger, because we have seen how, when decision-makers put in place exceptional means to fight a virus, they are capable of doing things never seen before. » Except that AIDS initially reached a section of the population that was already marginalized and affected “taboos of sexuality or drug addiction”…
We may wonder to what extent social intolerance and stigmatization have worsened the ordeal of patients. “It’s difficult for me to name what could have been done differently. But I think that, if we had not pointed the finger, if we had not tried to say that it was a divine punishment, the fruit of an amoral way of life, it would at least not have added this social climate with the burden that [le virus] was already. I don’t think it was illness that divided families. It was hatred, shame. Fear of how others look. »
And beyond the work of memory, this is what touched Alexandre Fecteau the most in the project: it leads us to reflect on the way in which we treat minorities, “in the broadest sense, when there is a balance of power in numbers. Does it alter our humanity, our compassion? Do we take our responsibilities, or do we consider that it doesn’t concern us? There are a lot of divisive subjects in this way, where a minority is more affected than the majority, and it can be tempting to ignore them. The way a society acts towards minorities, I think it says a lot about its collective humanity.”
If gay men are now “in a fairly enviable position”, the artist recalls the divisions created by the demands of trans people. “That, I think that that challenge Right now. »And we must live up to the principles we defend, he believes. “If we call ourselves inclusive, if we talk about human rights, we have to follow through on that. »