Art occupies an important place in the life of the former international president of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Joanne Liu. “Sometimes, when I see very difficult things on the ground, I need to see beauty to believe in the man. » She recalls in particular a mission to migrant detention centers in Libya, from which she returned “so upset, shocked”. “That day, I went hiking in the mountains, then went to see an exhibition and listen to the opera. It was the only thing that gave me some comfort. »
She professes a lot of admiration for her friends who have chosen the artistic path and she envy them this “extraordinary ability to reinvent the world”. “I’m the only one who went bad,” she jokes. When I was young, I did improvisation and when I decided to go into medicine, everyone was very surprised. Because all my friends went into visual arts, scenography…”
And it was at the theater, where the pediatric emergency doctor goes “at least” four or five times a year despite his busy schedule, that she met Frédéric Dubois. The artistic director of the National Theater School first invited her to come and speak to his students. And by meeting the director before his What time did we die? In the fall of 2021, Joanne Liu suggested the idea of a show addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, because she considers that we have a duty to remember. This is how the idea of Our Cassandras was born. “I know there is currently a rush to collective amnesia. But when was the last time that, globally, everyone put their lives on hold for 20 months, that there was such a significant economic contraction, that people were isolated, that our elders died all alone? asks the doctor. The trauma is so great that people want to forget. I understand, but it’s not a good idea. Because we won’t learn and next time, we will be in just as bad a position to respond to this type of crisis. »
The professor at the School of Population and Global Health at McGill University — where we meet her — believes that “an independent, non-complacatory evaluation of how things were done should be carried out. The idea is not to assign blame, but to say to ourselves: next time, we don’t want elderly people in CHSLDs [soient privées] of their caregiver to help them eat. »
In addition to the neglect in which these residents died here, she recalls that “millions of people have been dragged into extreme poverty as a result of COVID-19. We may feel it less in Canada, but in low- and middle-income countries, it’s huge. We are talking about hundreds of millions of young girls who have dropped out of school. Across the world, there have been points of no return that have further put vulnerable groups in a state of vital precarity.”
But ultimately, the piece — based on “kind of data collection sessions” from two discussions between DD Liu, Frédéric Dubois and the author, Anne-Marie Olivier — follows various humanitarian crises that the doctor faced. She was also present at the start of the rehearsals (“it was interesting to see the work on the game and all the nuance that needs to be brought”) in order to explain to the creative team the context of the situations described. The interpreter of his character, Jade Barshee, was particularly keen to understand his “state of mind” at the time.
Our Cassandras walks from a Quebec CHSLD to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, from Haiti to Libya… “These are key moments in the history of humanitarianism and global health. And it’s important to understand the issues, because it dictates what’s happening now. If Ebola had not created such a stir, we would have been much less well prepared for COVID-19. » This is where the need to collaborate, to share research results, became clear. “We are in such an interconnected and interdependent world, and if [la population] don’t understand that, I think it’s going to be difficult to understand how to look at certain issues, like the environment. »
The journey of the ex-president of MSF is also drawn by certain more intimate paintings, illustrating a commitment that began early: at 10 years old, after reading a text on apartheid in South Africa, she stopped eating her favorite fruit (Granny Smith apples) to participate in the protest boycott. A way of acting, already, on its own scale.
And for Joanne Liu, “there are no small actions. Everyone can do something to their extent. We don’t need to go to work on the front lines of Ukraine. We can make our contribution at home.”
And if a play certainly offers “a fragmented vision, it opens windows of awareness, and that is what is important today, believes Joanne Liu. Not everyone will read an article in a major newspaper or watch the television news — anyway, everyone tells me: it depresses me, I can’t see these images anymore. But maybe people will be ready to see a play that’s about [ces sujets] and who treats them in a very humane and easily sustainable manner.”
Mythological figure
The show – which will then be presented in Liu’s hometown, at the Théâtre de la Bordée at the end of April – inserts into this story based on reality the mythological figure of Cassandra, the one who predicted the fall of Troy but whom no one predicted. raw. She herself “does not pretend” to see herself as a Cassandra, but Dubois and Olivier were inspired by the article by Joanne Liu published in the Globe and Mail at the end of March 2020, where she warned of how the pandemic would evolve here and suggested a course of action — which was not noted, “at least not in Canada”. “When you reread the letter today, I was unfortunately quite right about a lot of things. »
What truth are we not listening to right now? “For example, on our duty in relation to migration and the migratory phenomenon,” she answers. This cannot be a zero-sum game. We could think in a much more empathetic way to respond to it, without ignoring the fact that yes, here, there are significant problems in relation to access to housing and food banks. I think we need to talk about it in a more intelligent way than what we’re doing now. »
For Joanne Liu, it is important to talk about these crises by humanizing them. She recalls that these are human beings “who are caught in wars, famines, [désastres naturels]. I think that when we start talking about people affected in terms of statistics, numbers, it’s problematic.”
And theater can be a way to reach more people, or even make them aware of issues they might not naturally be interested in. Joanne Liu talks about a film that had a huge impact on her when she was young: The Killing Fields, on the repression of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. “I said to myself: I am going to dedicate part of my life to not having to see that again during my lifetime. Art has a way of speaking about truths by making them accessible. It allows us to have an emotion about a given subject. This is why he has incredible strength. And as Stéphane Hessel said in his essay Be outraged!, “to create is to resist”. No revolution in the world, I think, has happened without the contribution of art. And the beauty of creation is important. Beauty, I think, is what gives life. We say it in the play: this is what makes us tolerate the intolerable. »