The ancient Greek poet Sappho, cantor of love between women, is at the heart of a production full of benevolence – but not devoid of clumsiness – presented these days at the Théâtre de Quat’Sous.
Posted at 9:00 a.m.
It was thanks to a book found by chance in a feminist bookstore that the playwright (and director of this show) Marie-Ève Milot discovered the existence of the revolutionary poetess Sappho, born 700 years before Christ. The question immediately arose in her: how to explain that she had never been taught the existence of this woman as famous at a certain time as Homer?
To rescue this extraordinary poet from oblivion, Marie-Ève Milot and her lifelong accomplice, Marie-Claude St-Laurent, have decided to dedicate their new show to her. Unfairly treated by history, despised by religious powers centuries after her death because of her writings deemed impure, Sappho is the very origin of the word “sapphism”, while the term “lesbian” derives from the name of the Greek island where she was born, Lesbos.
“Lesbian! It is moreover with this simple word, but so charged with meaning and, in certain societies, still so heavy to carry, that this spectacle opens; a word launched with conviction by Denise, former owner of clandestine bars for ladies only interpreted in an almost mystical way by Muriel Dutil.
PHOTO BY YANICK MACDONALD, PROVIDED BY LE THREESOUS
Muriel Dutil plays Denise in Sappho.
In a decrepit apartment in the Centre-Sud, reminiscent of the gynaeceums of Greek houses with its cushions and platforms on which to lie down, Denise has been welcoming her Muses with open arms for years. These women who need to rest, even to repair themselves, find within these walls a tightly woven community where feminine love is celebrated.
It must be said that Denise devotes a real cult to the poetess Sappho. Like the latter, Denise teaches the women around her the saving beauty of poetry and art, notably through magnificent and delicate retro-projections by Alix Mouysset.
There is Sacha, the untimely outspoken lover (Nathalie Claude, effervescent as one might wish), Ariane with a broken heart (Florence Blain Mbaye), the fragile Joris who struggles to assert herself (Alix Mouysset) and Chloé, the daughter Denise (Katia Lévesque, very sensual), who has always had a strained relationship with her mother.
Together, these five women will explore the power of Philia, this feeling on the border between love and friendship, in particular when the latter are combined in the feminine plural. Despite their differences, the Muses will stick together and take care of each other, with a benevolence that will reassure even the most embittered of spectators.
Because yes, the subject of the show is good in this dark period where war, pandemic and climate crisis only accentuate the withdrawal into oneself. Unfortunately, the emotion is too often kept aside because of the sometimes very didactic form of the piece which weighs down the whole. The information concerning the life of the poetess is machine-gunned like in an accelerated lecture: the raw replicas of Denise mix indiscriminately with a slew of Greek names and dates that are difficult to assimilate. As if the authors had not been able to disentangle the essential from the superfluous.
The heart and soul of the public are better served by the touches of humor that sometimes enamel the text, especially during an erotic appeal scene offered by Denise which turns out to be particularly… enjoyable!
We also felt the performers very nervous on Wednesday, opening night. Memory lapses, lines that overlapped or were chewed up to the point of being incomprehensible… But the Philia did its job, and the five actresses supported each other in adversity, to fall into each other’s arms in a beautiful outpouring of affection at the end of the performance.
Perhaps the most poignant scene of this show with a strong theme, but which failed to overwhelm us.
Sappho
By Marie-Ève Milot and Marie-Claude St-Laurent, directed by Marie-Ève Milot.
With Muriel Dutil, Nathalie Claude, Katia Lévesque, Florence Blain Mbaye and Alix Mouysset.
At the Théâtre de Quat’Sous, until April 2.