The One Dollar Story | Theatrical road trip for danger-loving actress

Last January, Sophie Desmarais thought of dropping everything.

For almost three years she had held alive in her soul and in her mind the dense text of the play. The One Dollar Story. Whole months she was inhabited by the character of Jodie Casterman. When the theaters were closed again at the start of the year, she thought she was going to crack.

“I called Roland Auzet [le metteur en scène de la pièce] to tell him that if the show was postponed again, I was jumping ship. I had to share this text which is so demanding! »

It must be said that Sophie Desmarais boarded this ship a long time ago: for a reading presented at Prospero in 2019. At the time, the text by Frenchman Fabrice Melquiot was still in a preliminary version. Since then, it has been remodeled, large sections have been added, then it has been pruned until it takes its final form, presented as a world premiere, still at the Prospero, from Tuesday.

“All these versions rub shoulders in my head, explains the actress. It took me several months to learn the text. Rather than read it, I recorded it and listened to it on my iPhone while I took my son in his stroller around town! »

Sophie Desmarais admits, taming this “story-theatre for an actress” was emotionally trying work.

The One Dollar Story tells the story of Jodie, a young woman who discovers a secret about her origins at the bedside of her dying adoptive father. To disentangle the true from the false, she will take to the road. His intimate investigation will take on the appearance of road trip with the great American spaces as a backdrop and several iconic artists (Leonard Cohen, Trisha Brown, William Forsythe) as traveling companions.

“This very sensory text features a series of ghosts, launches Sophie Desmarais. My character comes to summon memories that she wants to heal, but also to tear up or throw in the face of the other. She wants a second birth in her life. Jodie deconstructs and reconstructs herself before our eyes. She is a child of the hippie era who, unlike many, did not idealize this America of the 1960s and 1970s…”

This text full of references to American literature, which can be both poetic and very rooted in everyday life, is like Fabrice Melquiot’s dramaturgy “by jumps”, explains Sophie Desmarais. “His writing is syncopated, a bit like the mind going from one idea to another. However, do not let yourself be impressed by these leaps, because Fabrice’s words remain very accessible. »

However, “this Olympian piece where nothing is ever quiet”, Sophie Desmarais will have to carry it alone on stage. A first in his career. “I had never really dreamed of doing a solo before. I’m not someone who likes to be stared at. For our reptilian brain, to be seen is to be in danger! But in the theatre, you need danger, otherwise it’s not interesting! »

With the repeated closures of theaters, the postponements which have multiplied and the rehearsals by Zoom with a director in France and designers in Quebec — “a painful experience that I do not recommend to anyone!” », says the actress –, the creation of One Dollar Story will have been bathed in a perpetual sense of danger. For her first solo in life, Sophie Desmarais will have been served…

The One Dollar Story is presented until April 16 at Prospero

Also on display

What we breathe on Tatouine

Created last year at the Trident in Quebec, the piece What we breathe on Tatouine, adapted from the novel by poet and author Jean-Christophe Réhel, will be presented for the first time in Montreal. According to the production, the work takes “an empathetic and lucid look at the little pains of life”. It depicts “an endearing antihero who stands on the fringes of social norms of productivity”. Interdisciplinary artist Olivier Arteau signs the adaptation and staging. In the distribution, we find Stéfanelle Auger, Olivier Forest and Marc-Antoine Marceau.

At La Petite Licorne until April 8

The injury

The injury, of Gabrielle Lessard, will be premiered at Théâtre Espace Libre this week in a staging by the author. This dramatic comedy presents five women (Lamia Benhacine, Marie-Anick Blais, Eve Duranceau, Monique Spaziani and Catherine Bouliane​) separated by their social classes. Gabrielle Lessard takes “a critical and biting look at the polarization of debates on ecology and explores the divisions between generations”, summarizes the press release. The young artist is the first winner of the Michelle-Rossignol grant awarded by the Center du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui. The injury is published by Éditions Somme tout.

At Espace Libre until April 9

In Quebec

The ExLibris company pays tribute to an icon of Quebec culture with The Childhood of Art — Marc Favreau’s Fingers, a show designed and directed by Nicolas Gendron, based on the work of Marc Favreau. In addition to the texts rich in meaning and humor from the creator and interpreter of Sol, he asked playwrights Marie-Lise Chouinard, Annie Cloutier, Anne-Marie Olivier and David Leblanc to draw inspiration from the character’s poetry, then to propel “his language to new territories”.

At La Bordée from March 29 to April 9

The disappearance of things

The performers Amélie Rajotte and Marie-Philippe Santerre (seen recently in To dissolve, by Catherine Gaudet) dig into invisible materials, surfaces and reliefs in this new creation whose choreography is signed by Amélie Rajotte herself, an artist with an interdisciplinary approach, co-founding member of Lorganisation. The premise of The disappearance of things starts from the following question: what if nature no longer existed? Supported by landscape projections by Nelly-Ève Rajotte and musicians Olivier Landry-Gagnon on synthesizers and Stéphanie Castonguay on “tampered” instruments, the performers respond to this absence by working on presence, reactivating lost sensations, trying to rediscover the thread of what is no longer.

At the Agora de la danse from March 30 to April 2

Twice at TOHU

Not one, but two circus companies with roots in the United Kingdom are invited to TOHU from March 24 to 27. Barely Methodical Troupe comes to present bromance, an acrobatic and hand-to-hand show that explores friendships between men. As for the duo Nikki & JD, the love story they tell in Knot unfolds in the form of hand to hand, contemporary dance, capoeira and gymnastics.

At TOHU from March 24 to 27