As she says so well, author Caroline Bélisle specializes in “comedies that talk about unfunny things and dramas made from nothing”. The first Acadian to graduate from the playwriting program at the National Theater School, the Monctonian won the Gratien-Gélinas prize in 2020 for Les remugles or The nuptial dance is a dead languagee.
The play, a portrait of the hopes and setbacks of young people of our time, was created by Marcia Babineau, director of the Théâtre l’Escaouette, in April 2022. The show is making a brief appearance these days at the Fred-Barry Hall from the Denise-Pelletier theater.
In a series of vignettes totaling more or less an hour, the play interweaves the destinies of five lost souls. Lonely millennials, certainly, but who are still determined to reach out to others. There is Arnaud (Ludger Beaulieu), a hardened bachelor with a passion for marine mammals; Élodie (Frédérique Cyr Deschênes), in shock from a very recent separation; Marie-Frédérique (Caroline Bélisle), who, to escape her nightmares, sells flavored dreams in a candle shop; Julie (Cassidy Lynn Gaudet), a home entrepreneur whose field of activity is unusual to say the least; and finally the FedEx guy (Nicolas Dupuis), the friendly delivery man who connects the different universes, happily mixes the smells.
A cross-over in love
Without downtime, Marcia Babineau’s staging relies on judicious use of space, a device designed by Noémie Avidar and lit by Marc Paulin. Appearing inside, above and around a metal structure skilfully evoking the different locations, the performers adopt a perfect balance of dynamism and gravity. A few danced punctuations, hilarious efforts at seduction choreographed by Monique Léger, to the stirring music of Jean-François Mallet, give an insight into what is stirring in the hearts of these lovesick beings.
Light, that is to say with a thin plot and a barely more substantial subject, the crossover exposes first and foremost to a very endearing gallery of characters, a group of individuals who wade through the turmoil of a worrying, even despairing, era, but without ever lacking in spring or retort. To talk about her generation and her time, Caroline Bélisle uses lines that are both funny and scathing, monologues that are dark and yet cheerful, and romantic impulses not devoid of cynicism. It is in this bittersweet poetry, this fanciful realism of disarming honesty that the irresistible charm of the show resides.