With his ambitious documentary piece dissecting the most important agricultural production in Quebec, Justin Laramée walks in the fruitful footsteps of I love Hydro — an analogy incidentally assumed with humor in milk run. The play therefore reveals an in-depth investigation, which includes several interviews with actors in the field, also tracing the thread of the steps taken by Laramée. The author, director and performer has managed to convert his material, which is not always simple, into an engaging show where you can painlessly swallow content with a rich informative content. A fruitful dialogue between reality and the stage.
Created in Quebec in the spring, the piece presented at La Licorne is the culmination of a five-year adventure. Part of the plight of milk producers, a profession hit by a high suicide rate (as recalled by the show in a heartbreaking scene), and the scarcity of small dairy farms, the research ended up covering a vast field. From the complexities of the supply management system, which governs production, to the ecological issue and the treatment of cows and calves. There are enough revelations here that the neophyte will never see a pint of milk the same way again.
All in a form that the creator has taken care to make accessible and dramatize. Justin Laramée recounts his investigation through a marriage of incarnations of various interviewees and sound clips. He is surrounded for all decor by ten loudspeakers, which become characters in a way, and which he rearranges on stage according to the scenes. This presentation could have been dry. But the creator knew how to give an entertaining form to several scenes. Humor, even self-mockery, is often present – not to mention the audio participation of his children. It thus makes intelligible the thorny issue of the importation of diafiltered milk from the United States. A painting highlighting the absurd, Kafkaesque character of two government agencies not agreeing on the definition of a product…
There is no shortage of denunciations of the current system. But in a scene where he intelligently brings together excerpts from interviews with several speakers, Laramée accounts for the diversity of opinions. The author ofEscape praise also confronts his own naivety in the face of this complex issue. And its consumer paradoxes.
His point of view is also questioned, at times, by sound designer and stage partner Benoît Côté. In addition to energetically punctuating the narrative with percussion, this farmer’s son offers a counterpart to the urban artist, adding his grain of salt to this relevant encounter between art and agriculture. Two worlds, he notes in the program, which do not speak to each other. Until this important show, which reconfirms the value of documentary theatre.