The 557 spectators at the Edwin-Bélanger hall in Montmagny have been laughing for an hour and a half. When Marthe Laverdière, out of breath, announces the end of the show, the crowd stands up suddenly to applaud her idol, who lives about forty kilometers from here, in the village of Armagh, in the heart of the Bellechasse region. .
As soon as she leaves the stage, the horticulturist turned comedian goes to meet her followers, who line up to buy one of her eight books, take a photo or chat with “Marthe”. The audience is women who have brought their husbands.
“Did you come from New Brunswick?” Well, let’s see, bastard of the Holy Lord! » says the 61-year-old artist to Rachel Blanchard, who shakes his hand. The lady adores “the simplicity and authenticity” of Marthe Laverdière. “With her, we return to the essential things of life,” she said to Duty.
“I like his way of storytelling. She is human and true,” adds Luce Lévesque. “She is extraordinary, human, funny. With her, it’s real life,” adds Huguette Bernier.
It’s like that everywhere she goes. The show Marthe Laverdière puts on a show! has been filling theaters since February 2023. According to the Tuxedo box office, it has ranked second in the ticket sales charts for 365 days, behind Salebarbes and ahead of Fred Pellerin, Laurent Paquin, Christine Morency, Boucar Diouf, Mike Ward… No less of 270 performances will have taken place at the end of its Quebec tour, in December 2025.
Met in her dressing room before the show, the comedian offers a simple explanation for this craze: “People see someone human, who is not perfect. Women are afraid of getting old. To ride. Me, I’m happy when I get old: if you don’t get old, you die! »
Wounds to heal
In his autobiography, 100% naturalMarthe Laverdière recounts her existential quest, which led her on a winding path: getting rid of the shackles of superwoman that she had imposed on herself, to finally become herself. It took cancer at 39, depression at 44 and a multi-handicapped granddaughter to let go. Do what she loves. And love herself.
“I am no longer afraid of being who I am, with my physical defects, my rolls and my gray hair,” she writes. Or, as she told an admirer after her show: “It’s been a long time since I rolled it up and sat on it.” »
In the dressing room of her show in Montmagny, Marthe Laverdière looks back on “the childhood injury that almost killed her”. Her mother died of a virus when she was two and a half years old. She was raised by a loving father who did his best to raise his seven children, in the 6e Rating of Saint-Lazare. Little Marthe still felt all her life the lack of warmth that only a mother can fill.
To fill the void, she had the reflex at a very young age to “give a show ”, to speak loudly and seem on top of his affairs. “Unmedicated hyperactive,” as she puts it, Marthe Laverdière lives at 100 miles an hour. His head is buzzing with projects.
Thirst for love
She threw herself body and soul at 19 into the arms of Sylvain Talbot, her high school crush. They are still married 42 years later. Minou takes care of Marthe, he drives her everywhere in Quebec, sets up the kiosk to sell her books at the entrance to the performance halls and supports her in all her projects.
At 26, the young mother had already given birth to her three sons. Always insatiable search for love, she had all the trouble in the world cutting the umbilical cord, letting her guys stand on their own two feet. She felt useless.
In her book, a photo shows the Marthe of 2007, elected farmer of the year by her peers, but who had empty eyes, no longer able to seek recognition. She did therapy sessions to discover the joy of becoming herself.
“Today, if you don’t love me, I don’t care,” she said. You can’t please everyone. And I’m not afraid to try business. Take my show: I never thought about doing that, but I’m an opportunist. When an opportunity comes, I seize it. If it works, great, and if it doesn’t, too bad. I will have tried. »
That works. A lot. Despite learning the profession of comedian, for which she was not prepared. She smiles when talking about the advice of her mentor and accomplice, Mario Jean. “He says to me all the time: “Look at the balcony, Marthe!” I tend to look at the person in the middle of the row in front. »
She tries “as much as possible to recite the text” that they prepared together, but the natural storyteller quickly takes over. “I sometimes go beyond the text. Don’t tell Mario! »
Unfailing energy
At 61, Marthe Laverdière does not dare to say the word “retirement”. The motivation that drives her in all her projects is the foundation she created to help severely disabled children. His granddaughter Jeanne will never speak or walk. She must be force-fed. It is not for her that Marthe Laverdière works so hard – the tax rules of a foundation would not allow it, anyway – but for other disabled children. And their parents. She dreams of a care and respite home for these families tested by life.
“Everything she does, she does for others. Marthe is extremely generous. In return, I can’t believe how much love people have for her,” says her manager, Lorraine Pouliot.
At 72, this manager thought she would take a well-deserved retirement. “But Marthe came into my life, and everything changed,” she says, laughing. She has a schedule as the President of the United States. The only thing missing is the helicopter. She has extraordinary energy and creative capacity. »
Marthe Laverdière herself responds to her subscribers who confide their torments to her on her Facebook page. She takes advantage of her long car trips with Minou, her husband, to respond to messages that deserve comfort. And she has prepared a series of answers to the countless questions from the horticulturists who follow her assiduously.
She protests when she is informed that people consider her a “phenomenon”. “Don’t put me on a pedestal. I, the melodramatic, hate that. We are all phenomena. I have five sisters, they are as much phenomena as I am. The only difference is that they are not known. »