I have always been told that my work is very theatrical,” notes Catherine Mavrikakis. The award-winning and prolific writer has never explored the stage form, other than an oratorio (Omaha Beach), never played. It was Pierre Yves Lemieux who suggested to the director of the Théâtre de l’Opsis, Luce Pelletier, in search of a voice for her Cycle of Feminine Territories, to transpose her work onto the stage.
What is theatrical in the world of Mavrikakis? Passion, he said. “She is the truest author I have ever read: she does not make concessions to fashions and goes straight into her writing. » His characters retain their truth, despite their changing nature and their contradictions. “And that’s theatricality: a character can change along the way. I find that this is done less in literature, where often the character will evolve, but very slowly. And you, Catherine, you go all out. »
There is clearly a connection between the two authors, despite the distance, with the writer joining us virtually from Hawaii. “When I read Catherine’s novels, what struck me the most was the extent to which our worlds collided. And to do this exercise, you really have to stick to the work. » Pierre Yves Lemieux no longer uses the word “adaptation” to describe his work as a rewrite. “It is very important for me to play with the work. Because I find that the best way to reveal a voice is to make it your own, to better [transmettre]. »
I always thought I was very funny when I wrote. Because I make myself laugh. But it’s true that the tragic side casts a shadow over it. And Pierre Yves’ text manages to make me laugh even more. He was able to sense humor, despite the relationship with his mother which is complex. Catherine Mavrikakis »
Especially since he chose here to cast four works (Bay City Sky, Cannibal and melancholic mourning, What will remain And Absent from all bouquets). Books with a biographical element. Catherine Mavrikakis was already fictionalizing certain elements of her life there, which makes it “perhaps easy” to abandon her work to another creator, she believes. “And if he wants to do something else with it, I’m interested to see how fiction begets fiction.” »
The play’s four protagonists exist in her books, but Lemieux illuminates them in another way, she said. He manages “to make it an author’s text, which is his own and with which I am completely in agreement”. And the author is pleased that another work is born about her characters: it’s as if it really makes them exist. “We didn’t work together. Pierre Yves had all his freedom and I wanted that. But I still have the impression that by sharing characters, he worked with me [en mon absence]. And I can’t wait to see what we did together without me being there! », she explains, laughing.
Lemieux also wanted to offer a game to the public. No need to have read the books to see the show, but Mavrikakis’s readers will be able to have fun recognizing from which title such elements are taken or identifying what has been transformed, in “the puzzle” that he built.
Mournings
On the Quat’Sous stage, four women (played by Sylvie De Morais-Nogueira, Catherine Proulx-Lemay, Isabelle Vincent, Lou Vincent Desrosiers) tell their stories, each set in a different space-time. But they share a maternal figure (Sophie Faucher), who is “perhaps the same woman, but they have a different vision of her”.
In addition to this fundamental mother-daughter relationship, The sky is beautiful trash also addresses death. The characters are faced with four different bereavements, adds Lemieux. One has just lost her mother. A young woman murdered her entire family. In the 1990s, another saw AIDS take away her gay family. And an author is experiencing “literary mourning”. “To have novelist friends, I can say that it can be very intense! They therefore each have a knot to untie. »
In the manner of the original stories, which “enter into dialogue with each other”, the text woven by Pierre Yves Lemieux responds to each other, even if it transports us between different times and places. The author drew from Catherine Mavrikakis themes that touched him, but also his bright side. “It was very important for me to seek out what is most lively and vivid in his novels to offer it to the public. And there are some extremely funny things. One of his characters says: “I always write life, even in the darkest novels.” And that was my course of action. »
“I always thought I was very funny when I wrote,” adds Mavrikakis. Because I make myself laugh. But it’s true that the tragic side casts a shadow over it. And Pierre Yves’ text manages to make me laugh even more. He was able to sense humor, despite the relationship with his mother which is complex. »
The writer further emphasizes that by drawing inspiration from temporally distant writings, published from 2000 to 2020, the piece allows her to clearly see “how I have always done the same thing”, which continues in her literary project. “But what is beautiful is that the fury of the first texts burns and calms over time,” continues Pierre Yves Lemieux. The structure of the piece produces this too. It was very important for me to show this trajectory, and to end with calm. The four women go through their ordeal. » Female characters who are “very rich”.
The sky is beautiful trash did it give the creator the opportunity to learn things about her work? ” Yes quite. I have the impression that Pierre Yves read me literally, as a psychoanalyst would read me. My characters are not necessarily so paradoxical. But he showed the paradox which is sometimes expressed through the sequence of works. I have the impression that he understood things, personal things too, that he heard them through the texts. »
Catherine Mavrikakis considers herself “very fortunate” to see her world take shape in this way. Although she did not participate in its development, she had a right to review the piece, which she considers “superb”. And she admits that it amuses her that “something that I thought in a certain way is embodied completely differently. That’s wonderful. It’s as if I were going to see the implementation of what I usually never have access to: [la vision] of my readers.