The 2024-2025 season opens at Duceppe with a play about addictions and the difficult path to freeing oneself from them. Despite a fruitful staging and a royal cast, this text, at times anecdotal, fails to touch hearts.
In the center At the heart of the story is an elusive character: Emma, an actress whose career is spiraling out of control due to her use of cocaine, cannabis, alcohol and other drugs.
Forced to take charge, she ends up in rehab. But her will to get out is shaky, her commitment minimal. Her therapists demand an honesty from her that she is unable to offer them. Why stick to dull reality when fiction—an actress’s bread and butter—is so much more exciting?
Around Emma, the participants in the cure reveal themselves in all their flaws. Their stories overlap and repeat themselves a little. I betrayed. I lied. I stole. Emma, she knits a truth that suits her, shooting venom-filled arrows at those who try to help her.
As caustic as you want and elusive as you should be, Anne-Élisabeth Bossé is naturally admirable in the role of Emma. It is good to see her on stage embrace a role with all her might with her undeniable talent and the radiant presence that characterizes her.
At his side, Maude Guérin is always spot on, switching from one role to another in the blink of an eye: she is sometimes the doctor, sometimes the therapist or the mother. In the role of Tom, a participant in the treatment who is not moved by Emma’s lies, Charles Roberge is a revelation. A recent graduate of the Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Québec, he delivers an energetic and nuanced performance that suggests great things for the future.
PHOTO DANNY TAILLON PROVIDED BY DUCEPPE
Dance occupies a special place in the proposal of director Olivier Arteau.
Staging… danced
True to form, director Olivier Arteau has given pride of place in his proposal to dancer Fabien Piché. Here, the performer and choreographer embodies through movement the buzz that accompanies consumption, but also the torments that take hold of Emma’s body in her darkest moments. The dance segments, of a raw beauty whether solo or in a group, constitute one of the beautiful discoveries of this inventive staging. The very striking lighting, by Keven Dubois, is also to be highlighted.
In short, there is much that is beautiful and good in this theatrical proposal, peppered with humor. But the text by the British Duncan Macmillan (translated by David Laurin) does not succeed in awakening in us that part that demands to be moved. The character of Emma lies so much that we struggle to get attached to her. Incapable of an ounce of authenticity, she constantly slips through our fingers and ends up tiring us.
This drug addict and alcoholic almost systematically refuses treatment and looks down on the hands extended towards her. But what else? Even in the final scene, where life forces Emma to look at herself, we end up doubting her sincerity. The character’s journey is too limited to really fascinate us.
Ultimately, of all the addictions that undermine Emma’s life, it is probably the one to lies that will best explain the void that will be created around her. And the inability we had to be truly moved by her quest.
Check out the show page
People, places, things
Text by Duncan Macmillan, directed by Olivier Arteau. With Anne-Élisabeth Bossé, Maude Guérin and eight performers.
At DuceppeUntil October 12. Then at the Trident in January