When she joined the organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Liza Courtois was fully aware that she was not heading towards a sinecure. However, she was far from predicting that she would return to Montreal with post-traumatic stress disorder, which would be followed by depression.
“I find that representations of humanitarian work are often glamorized,” she laments. In reality, it’s much darker and dirtier and harder than you imagine. » However, as the author Christopher Morris had taken the initiative to document all the stages of his journey, a theatrical work was born from this ordeal: Tremors.
The Quebec nurse met the Toronto playwright during an information session organized by MSF. She made very few demands of Morris throughout the creation, but she wanted a certain light to emerge from the piece. Because his remarks do not fit – to say the least – in the register of candy pink. Marie, a fictional character inspired by Courtois, was confronted with unspeakable violence during two missions. First in the Central African Republic, then on board theAquarius, a ship dedicated to rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean. She learned from survivors about what happens in the camps where those arrested while trying to leave their countries are held, prisons where torture and cruelty reign with impunity, hidden from the eyes of the world. Back home, Marie must overcome her traumas in addition to suffering the constant assault of her own doubts: were her contributions and those of her colleagues really beneficial?
Another request of the muse was that the sole protagonist of Tremors is embodied by a “fat person”. The choice of Debbie Lynch-White, who also belongs to the LGBTQ+ community like her, delighted her: “It was very important to me that it was someone who looked like me physically. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have made any sense. We’re both queer people and fat people who have to dealer with that on a daily basis. However, in the field, this brought additional complexity with which my thin and straight colleagues did not have to deal. » “You had to be on your guard in many respects…” said the actress, empathetic. ” Permanently. I was being objectified a lot,” his counterpart retorts.
The ethical dilemma generated by this situation considerably undermined Courtois: “I had not imagined to what extent the privileges that I did not have compared to others [membres de la mission] were going to play in my head. And I felt guilty comparing myself because on the other side, I had people who really had zero privilege. It was very confronting. And I didn’t really have space to talk about it. Fatphobia is still too little known as a subject (even here), and the fact of being queer, you don’t say that in a country where, two months before, a woman was burned because she was a lesbian in calling her a witch. You’re avoiding the subject a bit. Even between colleagues. »
Of sweat and tears
If these questions are at the heart of the traumatic experience experienced by the nurse, they are not at the center of Tremors. On top of the painfully powerful images, the horrifying stories collected and the omnipresent doubts about the real effectiveness of humanitarian interventions, Morris has instead superimposed a story of mourning. Marie has lost one of her colleagues, which further increases her distress.
“Honestly, it’s the most intense thing I’ve done in my career,” says Debbie Lynch-White with conviction. I have a lot of hyperventilation attacks on stage, I cry, I’m exhausted… The load that it involves emotionally and physically, I’ve never gone through that as an actress. » Especially since the director Édith Patenaude makes the performer walk and run on a rotating circular stage, the speed of which increases as the performance progresses. “Until now, when I finish the routines, I still shake and cry for a few minutes afterwards. »
And the nurse advised her to treat herself to a piece of dark chocolate as soon as she got off stage. “Because of the serotonin” that cocoa encourages the body to produce. Then she adds: “I find that cool that you consider that it is the biggest ordeal that you have experienced in the theater because, for me, it is the biggest ordeal of my life. »
How can we continue to live while being aware of the tragedies and violence that are happening all over the world? This is one of the questions posed Tremors, while plunging the spectators into this same situation of disarmed witnesses. “It’s true that we have an immense feeling of powerlessness compared to all this as privileged white Western people,” agrees Lynch-White. And we sometimes wonder where to take this, how to help. » The actress still believes that the show can do useful work, “if only by awakening empathy”.
It is also because she is “convinced that art transforms the world” that Liza Courtois agreed to take part in the project launched by Christopher Morris and his company Human Cargo. However, this does not prevent him from maintaining, to this day, an assumed dose of fury: “I am angry. But with good reason, I think. I believe that anger against injustice gets things done. We have never obtained rights by being nice and saying: it doesn’t matter, we’ll wait. You have to get angry! »